


Marked

by notenuffcaffeine



Series: The Parent Pack [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: And lets not forget the Argents are guilty as sin, Chris Argent whumpage, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Hale Family Feels, Hunters are bad, Hurt Stiles, I Don't Even Know, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Chris Argent, POV Derek Hale, POV Melissa McCall, POV Sheriff Stilinski, POV Stiles Stilinski, POV Talia Hale, Pack Family, Stilinski Family Feels, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Wolf Derek, Wolf Talia, druids and hunters and emissaries oh my, druids are bad, here have a dark fic, hints of non-con but NOT what you think, i owe stiles so much fluff-fic for this, it's all Talia's fault tho, parent pack, post-season 3A-Au, stiles and derek are trouble magnets, storytime with Stiles and Talia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 90,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/notenuffcaffeine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles apparently intended to ignore the rest of the meeting. </p>
<p>“Where were you, anyway?” asked Aiden.  “And what’s the stuff on your face?”</p>
<p>“Druids.  Evil.  Moving on,” returned Stiles without looking up.</p>
<p>“Yeah, that’s the next on my list,” said Melissa.  “We’re having a bit of a - let’s call it a Druid problem-”  Without moving from his slouch against the couch, Stiles held up a hand to give the woman a sarcastic thumbs-up for the creative label.  Melissa hid a grin and moved on.  “And Stiles is in the middle of it.  So until it’s figured out, he’s on lockdown.”</p>
<p>“Wait, what?” asked Stiles.  He sat up, suddenly invested in the meeting again.  </p>
<p>“Meaning you go nowhere without one of us with you,” said Stilinski.  </p>
<p>“At least until we figure out why we can’t track you,” added Talia.  Stiles collapsed back against the sofa again to slowly die of babysitter-inflicted embarrassment instead of Druid-poisoning. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>... or ...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In which the Stilinskis and the Argents come to understand the hazards of hanging with the Hales.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Let's see if ao3 lets me post it this time...  
> (ao3 tells me errors and HilaryParker54 -aka world's awesomest beta- tells me if I don't post this she'll injure me. so many mixed messages!)
> 
> Happy Halloween! Here, have some long fic to help you through the candy surplus...
> 
>  
> 
> \---
> 
> Faith is strong, Control can be broken, Belief is unshakable, Marks are permanent.
> 
> \---

On hindsight, Stiles realized he should have figured it out sooner.  Just all the little things that should have added up.  He wasn’t sure he could have avoided the absolutely crushing pain in every part of his body in the long run, but he at least would have seen it coming.  Blindsided was his least favorite thing to be.  He had been.  Big time.  The only reason he was still functioning was the need to be safe, and warm, and dry, and the puzzle pieces of clues leading back over a year that he should have put together sooner.  Now that Stiles knew what the puzzle picture was supposed to be, he knew what he should have been looking for all along.

Like that time when Heather had dragged him on a double-date with the jerk-wad she ditched by the end of the night.  Stiles and the other girl - _Lilly_ \- had gotten along great, everything was going fine, and then... she went home too sick to drive herself.  He hadn’t even kissed her!  It wasn’t his fault.  She smeared ketchup on her face with a fry and all Stiles had done was wipe it away for her and it had scored him big-time points.  Five minutes later?  Boom.  He was driving Lilly home, praying she didn’t puke in her own car, Heather was following, and whatever mood might have once been was gone.

There was that new-kid, Brian-Something, who had shown up and _aggressively_ hit on Stiles all through Trig.  He was hot, smarter than _Lydia_ and ten-times nicer about it.  There was serious chemistry in trig class for like, a week.  And then they pulled a study-hall together and sat closer than a full desk apart, and the guy left with a migraine within twenty minutes.  

Looking back, it was really sad that Stiles could only count two near-misses in over a year.  He needed a life.  A real one, that didn’t involve werewolves apparently.  To be fair, he was a little blurry headed right now.  Maybe there was more evidence he just couldn’t remember due to millionth-degree head-trauma.  And rain had a hypnotic effect that was well documented and could totally account for memory loss.  He wasn’t sure it really applied when a person was walking in the rain, soaked to the bone and shivering, but he was just going with whatever worked at that point.

There were all sorts of people who were going to be mad at him for this.  His dad was up at the top of that list.  Scott was next.  Stiles liked to pretend Lydia would be outraged.  It wasn’t his fault.  It was very clearly Derek’s.  And it was Derek’s mess and Derek could clean it up.  Nobody else had to find out about it.  Nobody else had to worry about it.  Derek could just man-up and deal.  Stiles hoped the werewolf had some sort of superpower that let him deal better than Stiles could just then because he was _pretty_ close to the freaking edge.

When he finally got to the door, where it was dry, Stiles was still wet, still shivering, still in freaking pain, and standing in a puddle of rainwater because of wet shoes.  He had left a trail.  Stiles slumped against the door, leaned against it as he hit at it with a fist.  It wasn’t loud enough but for godsakes he was beating on the door of a werewolf den.  If Derek didn’t hear it, he was so screwed anyway.  Stiles heard the door latch and pulled himself away from the door just enough that he wouldn’t fall when it opened.  Then it did and there stood Derek, annoyed and then confused and then alarmed.  Stiles felt ridiculously relieved.

“You forgot to tell me something,” Stiles told him.  Right before he collapsed.

  
***

After the past few weeks of chaos where there should have been a nice peaceful winter break, the Stilinski house had no food in it.  Even the nutella jar had been emptied out, mostly because Stiles had no problem eating it for dinner when nobody was looking.  Stiles’ dad was back at work and worked longer when he had to because he was very much involved in Kyle’s caseload lately.  Stiles still thought the elder McCall was a gigantic waste of space, but he grudgingly didn’t say anything since the man was trying to help them out instead of hang them now.  He couldn’t ignore that kind of improvement.

It all still meant that Stiles had to walk to the grocery store because he needed food and he had no car and he wasn’t going to call Derek or Scott or somebody just to go find food.  He had pride that had to be looked after before his stomach.  And they’d still tell Stiles to walk anyway.  So he did.

The clouds were starting to roll in but it wasn’t cold enough to rain when he stepped out of the store with his backpack full of junk food.  The weather might have gotten him some sympathy points if he called for a ride, but it was only a mile.  Stiles decided to walk himself home and hope it didn’t start pouring on the way.  He had a jacket.  A hoodie.  Whatever.  He’d be fine.  

Stiles was attacked by a moth outside someone’s flower-infested front yard.  The moth lit on his backpack strap and walked with him a few paces before Stiles had even noticed it.  When he did, he stopped in the middle of an alleyway and tried to get the thing on to his hand.  It was the size of a small butterfly more than a moth.  Pure white and tan patterns on the dusted wings, with bright red jagged stripes streaked across their tips.  Not that Stiles had ever gone hunting extensively on the topic of moths, but he had never seen one like it.

“Hey buddy,” he said,  He held the bug up a little to look at it in the overcast light instead of his own shadow.  “You’re kinda cool.  So, pro-tip: it’s gonna rain.  You should go find someplace dry.”  Stiles waved his hand a bit and the moth got the hint.  It hung out with him for a few yards as they walked across the driveway and around the corner, then disappeared.

The moth showed up again, not far from his house, but Stiles didn’t get much chance to appreciate it.  The moth landed on his nose just before Stiles fainted flat out onto somebody’s yard.

  
***

Derek caught Stiles before he hit the ground.  He had half expected the fall as soon as he saw the kid in the doorway.  All bruises and cuts, blood washed away in the rain but nothing healed.  Stiles reeked of blood.  And ash, smoke and fire, and other smells Derek couldn’t even begin to place.  He kicked the door closed and moved Stiles into the loft, cradled against his chest like sudden movement would break the body he carried.  He couldn’t tell if the soaked clothes were dripping rainwater or blood in places.  Derek knelt in the middle of  the room, halfway to anywhere useful and started trying to pry the wet layers away to make sure Stiles was really in one piece under everything.

“Peter!” he yelled.  Stiles didn’t even flinch at the raised voice.  Peter was just as loud running down the stairs; he had caught the scent too.

“That’s not normal,” Peter said from still across the room.  “What is it?”

“Stiles,” said Derek.

“No it’s not,” said his uncle.  “He smells like you.  Sometimes Scott.”

Derek cut him a glare as he got near.  “Not helping.”

Peter adopted Derek’s urgency when he finally got a look at the teen draped over Derek’s knee and one arm.  Derek was one handed and trying to drag the overshirt sleeves off the unconscious body he held.

“You’re doing it wrong,” said Peter.  He cut the shirt down the middle and sliced the sleeves free.  Derek didn’t approve, because he knew Stiles would have a fit later, but he forgot about it the second he got a look at Stiles’ skin underneath.  Flayed and burned in stripes and hand-shaped prints across his chest and down his arms.  It wasn’t natural, some wounds smeared over the skin, edged with ash and colored clay.  And the marks were everywhere.

“And our boy pissed off a witch.” Peter frowned and held his hand over one of the prints at Stiles’ ribs.  “Maybe two?”

Derek growled and curled Stiles in closer, protective and set-off by Peter’s investigation.  Still crouched on the floor in front of Derek, Peter held his hands up in a call for peace.  “I’m just calling ‘em as I see ‘em,” he said.  “If you’re going to growl at me, I’ll just call Deaton and maybe he’ll help.  But this kid _needs_ help.”

“Then help!” Derek tried not to growl, but his uncle had said nothing about not glaring.  “How... What do I do?”

Peter stood and offered to help Derek get back to his feet without risking his already-injured cargo.  “Clean him up.  Wake him up.  Find out what the hell happened.  What do you _think_ we do?”

 

***

 

Chris got into the car, frustrated and already drenched by the rain.  It just added to the general ambiance of the day.

"That man..." he began on a growl.

Allison nodded.  "Is an unmitigated ass and needs to just..." She shook herself out of it and took a calming breath.  She straightened up, tried again.  "That was completely unhelpful."

Chris nodded.  "He was posturing.  Put on a show.  Not a damn thing he said was true."

Allison looked over at her dad, concerned.  "None of it? We can't use any of it?"

"I'll have to come back on my own," said Chris.  "Try again when he's not trying to talk up a legacy."

"Me?  He just... Made everything up because I was there."  Allison's expression hardened and she sunk against the car seat.  Chris grimaced and nodded.

"You were played.  So I have to come back.  And do this all again," he said.

"You know what?" said Allison.  Her tone was thoughtful and had a dangerous edge to it that sounded very close to her mother's.  "Screw him and his legacy.  You should bring Talia back with you."

Chris startled and stared at her.  "I should _what_?"

Allison nodded, her mind made up.  "That's what you should do.  He won't lie to her; she can tell if he does because she can hear it.   _And_ she was there."

Chris kicked the truck in gear and backed out of the nursing home visitor parking lot.  "No."

"Yes.  That's the only way we'll get anything out of him."

" _No_."

Allison didn't give up.  "But if the Hutchinsons have something to do with _Stiles_ and _he's_ the only one who knows where to find them..."

"I will not put an unpredictable _wolf_ in the same room with _that_ man," said Chris.  Allison raised a brow at him.

"Then I'm telling her where to find him.  She'll come on her own." Allison left the obvious _and kill him for us_ off the end of her threat but Chris added it on in his head.

"Why." was all he managed to get out coherently for a moment.  Then he snapped out if it.  " _Fine_. I'll deal with Talia.   _You_ stay out of it."

 

***

 

“Twice, fine.  Coincidence.  Related incidents.  But this is three,” ranted Casey at the steering wheel.  Day two of driving through the winter rain to locate his missing son.  “Three times in almost as many weeks that _my kid_ goes missing.  I do not like this pattern.”

Melissa bit at her lip and took a deep breath.  “At least we know where he’s not this time.  He has to be in town somewhere,” she said, mumbling.  “Kyle has every Hutchinson property in three states completely locked down.  Something about Puerto Rico...”

“No, just RICO.  It’s a...”  Stilinski shook his head.  “It’s not important.”

Melissa looked over at him, frowning.  She dug into the dash for his cell phone.

“What?” asked Casey.  “Please tell me it’s not on vibrate.  Oh god... I wasn’t that _stupid_...”

The sheriff got a look at the phone screen as she looked at it, seeing yet again no missed messages, no missed calls.  Complete radio silence.  Melissa put the phone back and then set a hand to his arm to calm him.  “No, it’s fine.  I just want to try Derek again.”

“Another country _not_ heard from,” said Casey.  He scowled.  “Won’t even answer the damn door for Talia.  If he’s even home.”  Casey swore under his breath, glaring out at the rain.  Stiles got bored in the rain.  He didn’t do _inside_ very well, and he didn’t do _cold_ very well, and the rain meant he had to do both things at the _same time_.  The internet was both a blessing and a curse in the winter.  Him disappearing in the middle of winter on some errand for Derek Hale would make a sort of sense just because he would be moving, not stuck inside four walls.  But him not giving _notice_ about some kind of alpha-errand made no sense at all.  There was also the detail that his car was currently sitting in the back lot at the mechanic because the front end had been crunched on three sides, so how the hell would he run errands in the rain without getting wet and cold and pneumonia... Thankfully Derek had no record of car theft, and Danny was the only one of the rest of the pack with any record at all, so the sheriff was at least hopeful his son kept grand theft auto relegated to video games.

Stilinski had become very territorial with his son lately and was growing to dislike the idea of Stiles being so obviously integral to someone else’s pack.  Especially when that someone else wouldn’t return texts or phone calls.  Stilinski saw Melissa end a call on her own phone without saying a word; apparently the _territorial alpha_ making the phone calls didn’t make a difference to Derek suddenly.  That said absolutely nothing good.

“I’ll keep trying later,” Melissa told him.  Casey nodded, distracted as they drove down yet another alleyway in search of god-knew-what.

***

Telemarketers had become the bane of Scott's existence.  No, nobody at the Stilinski home wanted to buy a new mortgage or donate to the disabled plumbers of America society.  But they called anyway.  The sheriff had an answering machine but in emergencies, people didn't leave messages.  Stiles wasn't likely to call his house before anybody's cell phones, but if something happened to him?  A hospital or a lawyer or a cop would call the house first.  Which meant someone had to watch the phone there.  Scott was the one most familiar with the Stilinski house and less likely to burn it down or something, so that was his job.  For two days.  Phones and staring out the front-facing window in Stiles' room to check the street.  

They knew Stiles had walked to the store and disappeared on the walk home because Stilinski checked Stiles' bank account and then the grocery store.  And when they found Stiles' backpack and phone on somebody's lawn, his wallet was still in one of the pockets.  The sheriff  said no self respecting thug would jump a kid for thirty bucks in milk, Mac & Cheese, and PopTarts.  

Scott would have preferred a thug to another two days of no Stiles.  Even Derek and Peter had disappeared, but Peter's car was still parked at the lot outside the loft.  They just didn't answer their phones, didn't even have them on because everything went straight to voicemail.  There was no telling where any of them went.

"Here."  Cora's voice startled Scott out of his zone-out on the window and he looked to see she had brought him food.  Like, real food, from a store.  Scott hadn't even realized how hungry he was until the sandwich was held under his nose.

"Oh my god.  You are a beautiful person, Cora," said Scott.  He was as relieved for the distraction as the food.  Cora smiled at him and leaned to sit on the window ledge.  She blocked his view but seemed to have done it on purpose.  He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Am I that bad?" he asked.  Cora nodded.

"I got all the way upstairs and within five feet of you before you even noticed me," she replied. "That's bad. Too much watching the street.  You're, like, over-focused and anything not Stiles is just right under the radar.  I'll watch.  Eat."

Scott almost felt bad for what she said.  It was true.  But at the back of his mind he knew he would have noticed if Allison had shown up.  He was comfortable with Cora and they made a good team, but it wasn't the same as what he felt before.  He didn't feel it come back, not the way he had with Allison.  Scott couldn't read her.  It wasn't a bad thing, what he and Cora had going, but Scott knew that comparing her to Allison wasn't fair.  

Scott tucked guiltily into his sandwich and let Cora take a shift.  The phone rang not long after.  He looked up at the cordless phone on the window ledge,  then at Cora with a big, food-stuffed grin.  She rolled her eyes and reached for the phone.

 

***

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The smell bothered Derek most of all. It burned, like ammonia. He was used to Stiles, he had the kid’s scents and movements memorized, and now Stiles smelled wrong and wasn’t moving. Derek knew he was there, but he still felt like he couldn’t see him. It was _wrong_. Everything in him wanted to fix it, but he didn’t know how.

Cleaning off the colored ash didn’t work, it was stuck, a magic curse that wouldn’t just wash away in an awkward, difficult shower. And they couldn’t call an ambulance, because there was no way to _explain_ that to the EMTs. There was also the small detail that Melissa would kill them for Stiles going to Derek’s place first, but Peter was more worried about that than Derek was. Peter wouldn’t let him carry a lifeless body out of the apartment, either, - the _neighbors_ see things and _talk_ \- otherwise Derek would have taken Stiles to Deaton. Even if the man was a vet and Stiles was not a werewolf, he was the closest thing they had to a witch.

An hour later, all of it left the magically-invisible Stiles dressed in borrowed clothes on Derek’s bed, Peter sitting on the edge of it, and Derek pacing in the unfinished doorway. Derek spent the last three days finally getting back to working on the loft, had his own space of what was starting to look like a room finally, and now Stiles was breaking it in for him. And there was a whole lot of _nothing_ getting done. Derek let out a very loud growl, frustrated.

“Do that again,” Peter said. He was watching Stiles, one eyebrow raised curiously.

“Do what?” said Derek, distracted.  Peter waved at him to hurry up.

“Growl.  Bark.  Yell.  You, make noise, now. It’s not this hard, Der-”

Derek interrupted with another growl, genuine anger at his uncle coming through. Peter pointed at Stiles.

“He heard you,” he said.  “He flinched.”

“I’m not going to _yell at him_ right now,” returned Derek. It disturbed him that Stiles heard his anger when the kid didn’t seem to hear anything at all. He was asleep, but not in the usual Stiles-sprawl that could happen anywhere.  His breathing was ragged and scared and unconscious.

“Then sit down and _whisper_ at him or something,” said Peter. “But all the talking I’ve done for the last hour has amounted to nothing, and then you growl once...”

Derek stopped pacing and stared. “That’s... stupid.”

Peter rolled his eyes.  “Consider the source for a minute,” he said. Derek glared at him for the dig at Stiles. “What?  Neither one of you are particularly intelligent.  He came _here_.  Of course he’s looking for you.  Especially right now.”

Derek didn’t look sold.  Peter tugged back the blanket to show the angry injuries that decorated Stiles.  “Witches, Derek. Okay? Let’s go with instinct on this one.  Sit down.  Have a conversation with a coma-case. _Trust Me_.  I _promise_ you, he can hear you.”

“Go call Deaton or something,” Derek said, muttering a little more than ordering his uncle around. He caught the blanket from Peter and smoothed it back down. Then he glared at Peter until the man left the room.

 

***

Rain made a curse of the skills Talia had taken for granted all of her life. Everything wet caught a new smell, something different from when it was dry. The water's sheen made things brighter, more distracting and less accurate. It muted things, confused them, and made her distrust her senses. It was worse in the city, with so many unnatural smells. Tracking had been a lot easier in the woods.

Talia huffed and tried calling her son yet again. He wouldn't have bought her the cell phone if he didn't intend for her to use it. But now he wouldn't answer. Every call went straight to voicemail. Peter was just as unreachable. Nobody answered the door anymore, and there were no audible clues that anyone was home at all. No heartbeats, no TV sounds, no footsteps. She and Scott didn't have to break down the door to realize it was empty. The twins didn't even try, they just followed their noses back to the parking lot and then promptly lost the trail in the rain.

As Talia was putting her phone away, it rang. She checked the ID, momentarily disappointed that it wasn't Derek.

"Was there any better luck on your end, Chris?" she asked on a sigh.

"No," he said. He was angry, that much was obvious. "Where are you?"

"Backtracking from Casey's again. Not finding anything. Again."

"Meet me there. I'll pick you up," said Chris. Talia didn't question and let the connection die as she turned back up the street. The rain hadn't let up, but she didn't mind it so much. Chris would complain about it in his car though, so she shook out the hooded jacket as she stood under the cover of the porch and carried it tucked over her arm when Chris showed up to collect her less than three minutes later.

In the safe, warm and dry confines of the now familiar SUV, Talia caught her first scent of trouble that she had all day. She looked around the car from the passenger side. Chris was the only one there, and he was more surly than usual. The familiar, unwanted scent still burned, but it's source was unclear. Talia tilted her head, looking at him without bothering to ask her question. Chris didn't look likely to answer. He wouldn't even look at her.

"I have to show you something," he said. Talia agreed with a simple nod.

 

***

Alone. Being alone was the worst. Talia could handle the strange forest, the noises and the dark dug-out box she had been buried in. It was a coffin, made of stifling ash and set in the ground, but not so far that she was dead. Air moved in and out through vents above the ground but she couldn't shred through the ash. She had tried for two days, half-mad from grief and pain at being alone.

The third day she realized this was what amounted to the fabled Argent code. They killed the killers, but nobody ever asked what they did with those innocents they corralled after a hunt.

Talia Hale was a lawyer. Pro-bono work, family law. None of her family members were killers. Some weren't even wolves. But they had been attacked, corralled and hunted in the worst, most cowardly way: fire. Talia had seen the flames, home too late to stop anything. She wouldn’t have been at home at all that morning if she hadn’t remembered she had left her files on the table and turned around at the highway to go back. She was ambushed as she got out of the car, shot and tranq'd with enough ketamine to drop a rhino. The last thing she saw were the flames from the basement. Children's screams tormented her drugged sleep until she woke up in the cold, in a box she couldn't escape.

In the daylight, on a day she had completely lost count of, the shadows of hiking boots flickered enough to draw Talia out of her shocked stupor. She couldn't think of anything other than her loss. Until she heard the men's voices outside the box. Loss fueled rage and she waited in silence until the doors above her head opened.

The blinding sun hit her sharply and her planned attack stalled out until she could see again. When she did, she recognized the face of Gerard Argent too well. Another man stood beside him, the same age, the same cruel smile. On each side of the box, a hunter stared down at her, including the blonde twenty-something who looked like a frat-girl. Another Argent Talia knew well. Their code had spared her family for so long, but now... Now they had overlooked it. They had started a war and won the first battle.

Talia leapt for Gerard, intent to win the next one. He barely lifted a hand and shot her through the hip, the force at that range enough to send her back into the deep box.

His voice followed her down before the doors were dropped closed again. "No, it looks like she's not ready yet, my friend."

 

***

 About three chapters in to the paperback Derek had found lying around, Stiles turned his head toward Derek.  It was kind of a toss, arms moving under the blankets just a little, but not enough to roll the body to the side.  Stiles was still in that weird, unnatural sleep but there were signs of life. Rather than stand against the wall and read outloud, Derek moved to sit on the bed.  It was somehow working, so he didn’t feel like such an idiot anymore. He still didn’t have anything to say that wasn’t angry or worried, though, so he hung on to the book.  Settled against the wall next to Stiles, he frowned.  Stiles had said something before he fell at the door and the words eked back to the front of Derek’s mind then.

There was a lot of stuff he didn’t tell Stiles.  Generally, they argued, for the sake of arguing. Communication was a new idea to the last week, and that was mostly brought on by Stiles’ self-appointed research project on _All-Things-Derek_.  They were in uncharted waters for the both of them, and Derek had a sheriff and even his own mother browbeating him whenever someone strung their names together in the same sentence.  It wasn’t that he _forgot_ anything; he just didn’t get to share much.  What would Stiles have found out that could set witches after him?  And how would it be Derek’s fault when he had never run into a witch of the kind Stiles had found?

“Would you just wake up?  Damnit, Stiles,” Derek said, snappish.  Stiles flinched in his not-actually-sleeping state.  Derek slouched lower against the headboard, looking like a tail-tucked mongrel.  He tugged Stiles’ hand out from under the blanket and caught on to his wrist, tried to pull some of the pain. It stung and Derek stared, confused. Stiles made a face and looked like he was hurting more rather than less.  Derek realized the usual comfort that he could offer was instead hurting and he almost let go, except Stiles tugged at his hand to get it free, showing signs of awareness. But he didn’t wake up and Derek let go, not willing to cause pain if it wouldn’t work.  Their hands dropped back to the blanket. It nearly sent Derek off the bed when Stiles caught his hand and hung on.  That... was not normal.  Derek squeezed back and leaned down to get in Stiles’ space.

“Come on.  Wake up.  We’ll fix this.  I promise.  Just wake up,” he said quietly.  Stiles seemed to relax but he didn’t let go.  Derek frowned and leaned back against the wall again.  He wasn’t going anywhere for awhile now it looked like.

 

***

 

Stiles woke up to someone in his space.  He felt breath on his face and a mouth on his mouth and freaked out that a stranger was giving him CPR. He knew it wasn’t Derek because they didn’t smell like Derek, it just didn’t _feel_ like Derek in his space.  He jerked his arms and tried to sit up, shove the good samaritan away before he punched them, and then realized he couldn’t move his arms.  Stiles’ eyes opened and he saw red hair, pale skin and freckles.  But it didn’t feel like Lydia any more than it felt like Derek.

“Away! Get Away!” He hadn’t had a good enough _year_ to be in the mood for random strangers molesting him while he was passed out on the street. Stiles turned his head away and smashed his nose into his arm.  His bare arm.  Which was covered in mud or something equally... “What the hell?”

The redhead stepped back and he could actually see where he was and that he was definitely not on his street anymore.  He was hanging from shackles over a support beam in the old cellar under the Nemeton, and _who the hell thought it was a good idea to unbury the damn cellar?_   Stiles swore out loud, a long string of words he wasn’t allowed to say in front of anyone over the age of twenty-five, until the redhead caught his mouth under her hand and looked over her shoulder.

“He’s awake,” she called out.  Stiles stilled.  He rather liked her voice.  Why had she been in his space?  He looked where she was looking and saw a very tall, dark haired man across the restored cellar.  Candles were stuck places at random around the room and there was _nothing_ creepier than the entire situation.

“Then get on with it, Rowan,” the man suggested.  The woman turned back to Stiles, bright features giving him a brief, soft smile.

“Don’t worry,” she told him.  “You’re safe here.”

“Uh, yeah, I _really_ don’t think so,” replied Stiles.  The woman shrugged and picked up a clay jar from a shelf not far away.  The last thing he expected was for her to dump the contents of the jar over his head.  Stiles spluttered as dirt and powder embedded clumps into his hair and dusted up into the air around him.  It set off a coughing fit that Rowan was completely immune to.  She muttered under her breath, words Stiles couldn’t recognize, and distracted herself by painting mud on to Stiles’ chest with her fingers.  Stiles had a panic attack while hanging in the middle of the room with his back to the roots of the Nemeton.

 

***


	3. Chapter 3

After another couple of hours, Stiles still wasn’t awake, and he still wouldn’t let go of Derek’s hand.  Derek had fallen asleep himself for awhile and had slid down onto his side, curled protectively toward Stiles over the blankets.  Peter startled him awake.

“So you missed a text announcing Stiles was missing,” said Peter.  Derek blinked at him, then looked at Stiles.  Stiles had retreated - with his hand - under the blankets when Derek was startled.  What the actual hell with that kid? ! Derek couldn’t figure out what was going on and he tried to focus on what Peter had said instead.

“How long?  When’s the last time anybody saw him?” he asked, groggy.

“The text was sent _two days_ ago.”  Peter tossed the phone to Derek, who caught it and tried to sit up.  Stiles didn’t let go so Derek gave up and focused instead on checking his messages left-handed.

“That’s not possible,” said Derek. “I would have noticed.”

“You think?” replied Peter.  “ _Witches_. Duh.”

Derek frowned and looked over at the little bit of dark hair visible over the edge of the blanket, all that was currently visible of Stiles.

“How do we wake him up?” he asked Peter.  “If he’s been gone two days, we need to know what’s going on.”

“He responds to fear,” said Peter with a shrug of his shoulders. “You should scare him.”

Derek’s hesitation was enough of a clue and Peter shook his head.  He started to shift forms, let out a growl that surprised even Derek. Derek felt Stiles tense up, harsh shivers, but no other signs of life.  Derek sat up and leaned over Stiles to growl at his uncle, his eyes flashing a warning to make the man back off.  The kid’s grip on his hand was near crushing until Peter stopped making noise.  Whatever had a hold of Stiles was definitely not normal.

When Derek sat back again, he peeked under the blanket to check on Stiles. Brown eyes blinked out at him.

“Son of a bitch,” muttered Derek.  He looked up to glare at Peter, annoyed the man was right just as much as he was annoyed at the method.

“Watch how you talk about your gramma, kiddo,” returned Peter with a shrug. Derek looked up with a brief glare but put his uncle on ignore.

“Stiles?” he asked. “Are you awake in there?”

Stiles blinked at him again, but he showed no inclination to move at all.

“Can I have my hand back?” Derek asked.  Stiles let go, almost nodded his head, but then snuck his hand back out and grabbed Derek’s hand again before it could move too far away.  Derek rolled his eyes and nodded. “At least I know you’re in there.”

“Ask him what happened...” Peter chimed in unnecessarily from across the room.  Under the blanket, unseen by Peter, Stiles rolled his eyes and buried his face in the pillow, his mouth open in a silent growl.  Derek looked back out at Peter.  He took his hand back from Stiles long enough to point his uncle out of the room.

“Go take a walk or something!” he said.  He wanted to tell Peter to go call Scott or maybe even the sheriff - who would _kill_ the second he saw his son half naked in Derek’s bed, because context took longer than two seconds to fathom - but that would be a waste of time.  No one would listen to Peter, and if they did, it would only end badly because he knew how to make _everything_ end badly.  Peter just had to leave for awhile and deal with it.  Derek won the staring contest over the matter - red trumped blue - and Peter pouted all the way out the front door.  Stiles stole Derek’s hand back.  Derek let him.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.  Stiles opened his mouth too quickly for anything truthful to be about to tumble out and Derek gave him the side-eye.  It made Stiles pause to rethink.

“Don’t tell me _nothing_. You were gone for two days! Something happened,” said Derek.  He pulled the blanket off of Stiles’ head and away from the rest of him.  “That, Stiles. What did _that_.”

It was eerie being faced with a Stiles that couldn’t talk. He kept starting and stopping and he pushed himself up to curl over his knees, thinking so loud it hurt Derek’s head.

“Is it going to hurt the pack?” Derek finally asked. A simple yes or no, Stiles couldn’t trip on that one. Stiles cut a look over at him.

“Which _one_?” he asked. Derek balked.

“Pick one,” said Derek. He wanted to shake the kid. “What is going on?”

“I can’t... I don’t know what...” Stiles still kept tripping over what he was trying to say but at least there was a voice trying to say it. Sitting next to him, Derek held his hand over to him, palm up in offer to let it be stolen again. Stiles snatched it. Derek felt him shaking and frowned.

“Okay, new question,” he said, trying for patience. “What did you mean when you got here? What did I forget to tell you?”

Anger flashed on Stiles face and he looked like he wanted to shove Derek, but he couldn’t while he was hanging on to Derek’s hand like his life depended on it. “Would you just gimmie a minute?” Stiles said, demanding more than asking for anything. Derek shrugged.

“You’ve apparently had two days. Is a _minute_ going to help you figure it out if you haven’t already?” he asked. “Just tell me. I’m trying to help.”

Stiles hit his limit and looked over at him, exasperated. “You freakin’ _marked_ me, Derek?” he said.  “I smell like Derek Hale’s personal territory and make anybody sick who comes near me with less than puritanical intentions and you couldn’t maybe _mention_ that to me at some point?  I had to have a couple of...” Stiles choked off, now officially into the topic he was stuck on before and unable to get words to work again.

Derek paled, suddenly very glad he had sent his uncle out of the building. “I what?”

Stiles shook his head. “They said you marked me, like a claim.  Any time you touched me or I touched you.  Like pheromones, only instead of working like normal, they work the exact opposite, like a great big sign saying _This One’s Taken, Go Away_.”

Derek leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I... I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well they did.  Picked me out of a crowd because I _smell_ like you.  I was saturated in _eau de Derek_ ,” muttered Stiles.  Derek looked over at him.

“No you don’t.  I can’t smell you at all,” he said.  Stiles made a face, not at all surprised.  He motioned to the angry welts on his arms and chest.

“Yep, that’s what they wanted,” he said, completely unenthusiastic about it.  He looked over at Derek, sad, frustrated, and confused all in one face. “The stupid thing is, I don’t care that you did it.  I care that they _took_ it.  The pack...”

Derek didn’t understand that at all and he stared down at the bed, fully guilty for something he hadn’t even known he could cause.  He stared over at Stiles, the big wolf who couldn't even meet a teenager in the eye just then.

"I don't get it," he said finally. Stiles shook his head.

"I'm done. Not talking about it anymore," he said.  Derek was having a hard enough time with the idea that he didn't argue.  He pulled out of his funk a little when Stiles took the hand he still clung to and set it up against one of the welts on his ribs.  They lined up perfectly, a complete hand-print.  Derek jumped back like he'd burned him.

"I wanted to see," muttered Stiles.  He pointed to his arms. "Harder to tell on these."

"That's what these are?" Derek asked. " _My_ hand-prints?"

Stiles nodded, his lips turning up on one side.  "Apparently you're pretty handsy and we never bothered to notice."

The marks were all over Stiles' front and back and around his neck and collar.  There had been some on his legs when they were trying to get the ash off of him.  Over a year's worth of interactions, mapped out in burns and paste.

"How..." Derek wasn't sure if he wanted to know how the prints had stayed on Stiles' skin or how the witches had brought them out.  Stiles paled and rubbed at some of the ash burned on his arm.

"Covered me in this stuff and set it on fire.  A lot," he muttered.  Derek stared at him then, wide eyes finally meeting Stiles'.  Stiles must have seen something and shook his head quickly, worried.  "It wasn't like real fire. I..."

Stiles shut up before he could be mistaken for a crazy person needing a psych eval.  Derek shrunk back, trying to keep his hand as he went.  He needed to go be sick somewhere.

 

***

 

Lunch was a little late. Casey had been too distracted to notice that he was hungry, and Mel just let him prowl the streets in the car to look for his kid.  By the time she finally had enough of his cranky coffee-crash, they were at a diner parking lot and it was like the woman had somehow _planned_ it.  She told him to park it and he did.  Inside, she told him to order a burger and put bacon on it because it would make him feel better, but as he looked at the offerings, the only thing that looked like it would make him feel better was a chicken salad and some soup.  Vegetable soup.  Melissa eyed him suspiciously over her menu.

“Great,” she commented dryly.  “Stiles is missing, and I’m riding around with some kind of clone of his father.  I’m not sure this week could get any stranger.”

“Come on.  Why would you say that?” asked Casey soberly.  “Every time somebody says that, it always happens.  I think things are weird enough around here right now, alright?”

“ _You’re_ the one who just passed up a bacon and onion rings freebie,” replied Mel with a grin.  Casey grumbled and tossed the menu to the end of the table, the universal signal that he was ready to order.  Preferably before he changed his mind.

“The little jerk shows up in my head to tell me off _every_ time I _look_ at bacon now,” he said. “I can ignore him when he’s sitting right there complaining about it, but right at this minute...”

Mel’s menu was stacked up neatly on the one he had abandoned and she let a sigh escape. “They’ll show up, Koz.  We’ll find them, safe and sound.  I know it.”

“Yeah.  That’s what I keep telling myself,” Casey replied.  There was a buzz against the seat beside Melissa and she dove for her purse. Casey only barely kept himself from doing the same thing from across the table.  Instead, he checked his own phone, hoping he hadn’t missed a call again.

“Allison?” Melissa asked into her cellphone.  The sheriff listened shamelessly, straining his ears to hear the other side of the conversation but he didn’t have Scott’s hearing and he had to settle for Mel’s side.  It didn’t make sense past the small talk and he picked up a menu just to distract himself.  It didn’t really work.

“Why didn’t anyone tell-” Melissa was agitated and Casey looked to her, concerned.  “No, I don’t care about the territory-thing, Allison. I care about _that_. I should have known about _that_.  Especially if _Scott_ knows...”

Casey’s eyebrows inched toward his hairline as Melissa’s temper flared.

“What?” he finally asked.  He reached a hand across the table to catch her attention and she caught it, shoved it back at him and hung on.  She looked out the window and swore.  Casey blinked, surprised.  He almost let go of her hand as he saw her eyes.  Melissa had picked up a new alpha-trick in the last week and Casey didn’t know what to do about it, didn’t know if it was normal or if he needed to be worried.  It didn’t seem to bother Melissa that her eyes turned _red_ when she was angry or worried.

“Hey...” Casey said, quietly trying to get her to focus back on him before somebody else noticed.  Mel tugged at his hand, a silent request that he be quiet.

“No, I’m glad you’re telling me now, but it would have been nice to know a week ago, _at least_... maybe...”  Melissa carried on with Allison over the phone.  Casey lifted their clasped hands and pointed at Melissa’s eyes.

“You might wanna... you know...” It was enough and Melissa let go of his hand to hold her hand to her face.  She leaned on the table just enough that she looked like she was just shielding a headache, but Casey could still see the bright red hint over the brown.  He kept a nervous watch over the rest of the diner as Melissa paid attention to the phone.

“Wait... you what...” The anger was dampened to a sort of grief and Melissa slumped over her arms on the table.  “Please tell me you’re kidding, Al... please... please...” There was a long pause and then Melissa lightly pounded a fist on the table.  “Allison, honey?  You realize I’m _killing_ you when I see you later, right?”

Casey raised an eyebrow and silently thanked Everything Out There that Chris wasn’t sitting at the table with them.  He listened as Melissa all but ordered Allison to keep her informed and slowly extracted herself from the conversation.  She kept her head down until the call was ended.  Then she peeked up at Casey, one eye closed until he nodded that she was in the clear again.  The red was slowly fading to brown.

“What the hell...” Casey began. Mel shook her head.

“The _Argents_ didn’t think they needed to _tell_ anybody their patriarch hadn’t actually _bit the dust_ ,” she said quietly. “That is, of course, until they decided to take _Talia_ to see him... Then _maybe_ Allison figures they _might_ need back-up.”

Casey hadn’t heard much from Talia about the Argents, but he knew well enough there was bad blood there.  Chris and Talia had made some sort of peace, but they were still on eggshells around each other’s kids half the time because of it.  Melissa knew more, though, and Casey figured he was safe in assuming from her reaction that Talia meeting up with Gerard was probably about ten times worse than he figured it would have been otherwise.

“Do we need to go?” he asked.  Mel shook her head.

“No. The facility they’re at won’t let us in,” she said.  “We’re not family.  Allison said she’ll keep us in the loop this time.  I just can’t...” Melissa stopped and shook her head.  She held up her hands and dropped her phone back in her purse.

“Screw it,” she said, still exasperated. “ _I’m_ getting the bacon burger.”

***


	4. Chapter 4

The stench of the place burned and Talia glared at the back of Chris' neck as he stalked down the hall. This was a violation of trust. Chris hadn't said anything for a month about something Talia should have been told from the start. He had hid this place from her, and probably the rest of the pack. If Melissa had known, she would have said something long ago. If Casey had known, Kyle McCall would have dragged Gerard Argent through the mud with the Hutchinsons when he made public Talia Hale's return to Beacon Hills. Still, she had to ask.

"Do the others know?"

"No. Only Allison," said Chris. He hesitated, stopped for her to catch up. "And Scott."

Talia's eyes narrowed. "Why am I here?"

Chris sighed, scrubbed a hand at his temple. "If he knows where the rest of the Hutchinsons would hole up, he's not telling me. And right now, they're our best guess at what's happened with Stiles."

Talia’s eyes flashed blue as she glared at him, too frustrated to speak for a moment. Chris stood straighter, not tolerating the challenge in the middle of a nursing ward. “I’m telling you now, so back down. It wasn’t relevant before.”

“Oh, trust me,” said Talia with forced humor, “It was very relevant.”

He showed no signs of continuing and Talia waved him back down the corridor. Chris didn’t walk in front of her this time, probably a wise course of action considering the flare of temper Talia couldn’t back herself away from. He glanced over at her from where he walked at her shoulder.

“How did you know?” he asked. “Did Allison tell you?”

Talia sneered. “I can _smell_ the bastard.”

Chris glanced self-consciously down at his clothes, possibly considering burning them later. Talia found the door without guidance and paused. What she saw through the door surprised her enough that she stayed back. Talia had caught the sick smell, the death in no hurry to go, but it hadn't made sense. The old man crumpled in the chair wasn't the one who had tormented her in Nevada. He bled black. He wasn’t dying, but he wasn’t healing. And the smell of wolf in the room was unmistakable. Gerard sat facing the windows, a pile of dirty Kleenex on the floor. She had no idea what to expect beyond the door. Talia stepped aside and motioned Chris to go first.

"You're back again?" Gerard asked Chris. The younger Argent crept into his peripheral vision enough to be noticed and he sounded amused. "Two visits in one day is some kind of record."

"No, it's a waste of time," said Chris. "You were playing games with Allison. Now I want you to tell me what I need to know about your old allies."

"There were no games. There was simply nothing to divulge," said Gerard.

Chris crossed his arms, stubbornly shook his head. "I know you and Brian Hutchinson orchestrated the attack on the Hales. I know why. I know you were allies before and after. What I need to know now is where to find the rest of Brian’s family, or any of the others from his network."

"And how would I know that from in here? I am rumored to be dead. They don't include me on the mailing list of the _monthly newsletter_ ," replied Gerard.

"Because I know you. You memorize everything. Addresses, phone numbers, maps. No records," said Chris. "You would know where he goes off the grid."

"You would expect miracles out of the mind of a sick old man," said Gerard. Chris looked like he wanted to punch the perfectly competent sick old man. It made Talia feel a little better at least. She stood up from the wall and stepped into the room fully, shutting the door behind her. Chris glanced back at her briefly.

"There's someone here to see you," said Chris to his father. Gerard coughed into another Kleenex.

"Well, this _is_ a busy day," he said.

Talia stepped into Gerard's line of sight, framed herself between the two picture windows Gerard had been enjoying the view from. He stared at her as his eyes adjusted.

He smiled, dark and twisted. "Ah, so that's what this is about?"

"Not at all," said Talia quietly. "This is about finding a teenaged boy.  What you and I have to discuss will wait. For now." Talia cut her glare up to Chris briefly.  She crossed her arms and stood tall as she watched Gerard.  No twitch, no nervousness.  He assumed she was still broken and tamed.

"Why," began Gerard, still smiling, "Would I know where the boy is? And more to the point, why would I stand in the way of the _worst_ that could happen to _any_ of them? I ordered all of their deaths months ago. I am quite comfortable with the arrangement as it stands."

"I can certainly make you less comfortable," said Talia. She sniffed the air. A dark smile of her own crossed her lips.  "And with wolves, you know how long we can withstand pain."

***

The barn floor was a cement pad, not dirt.  No straw anywhere.  Everything was built against the walls and the floor could be hit with the hoses, flooded to clean away whatever muck was tracked in.  It was an open-air lab, though not much in the way of technology was visible. That was stored in what had been the tack room, once. It cut down on the dust and was easier to wire for electric.  The machines made the room whir and buzz and the noise kept Talia awake since she slept above it. The place wasn't a barn, wasn't a lab, but it was meant to hold animals.  Stalls held cages if they hadn't been converted into them.  A taxidermied jackalope sat on the shelf above where Hutch kept the portable tech, and it always amazed Talia; she had thought those were just myths.

Talia stood on the wet floor of the barn, four feet stable and ready to pounce, her head low and teeth bared.  The doors were closed and too thick for her wolf form to break through.  She was penned in, with hunters at either end of the barn.  Mark crouched the closest to her, boldest because he was a wolf.

"I need to learn how to do this," he said, speaking over his shoulder to Hutch without breaking eye contact with the wolf.  "We could use it."

"Maybe," agreed his brother.  Talia added volume to her growl.  She wouldn't teach them anything useful, definitely not to find the wolf.  They were hunters.  Kate Argent toyed with Mark as a curiosity, nothing but sick pity on her face when she cuddled up to the older man.  Mark didn't see himself as a wolf, but his friends did.  They had already hurt Talia's pack; she wouldn't make it easier on them to hurt others with a decoy.

“Okay, got it ready,” Hutch reported.  Mark backed up to the computer station with Hutch and Kate and Talia knew trouble was coming.  She had been there a month now, learned their ways.  Kate usually showed up when things got violent, which said nothing good about Talia’s prospects for the evening.  Quieted by their change in tactics, Talia stepped toward them to follow and Mark flashed fangs at her.  The man had remarkable control for a hunter less than a year into the changes.  He had picked up the communication cues from Talia very quickly over her first weeks there.  He made himself very clear now; she was not welcome on their side of the barn.

Talia turned back, pacing across the wet floor and watching the trio warily. And then it happened. The floor beneath her feet seemed to come alive, sharp electric pain digging into her paws and up through her bones. Surprise and fear dragged the yipe from her and she skittered off the watered surface of the barn pad, looking for some place dry. The nearest was the kennel she had been let out of, just at the edge of the water, and she tucked her tail as she settled on the rubberized mat inside it. Only then did she realize that the kennel was touching the watered floor. The electric buzz from the kennel was what triggered the electricity across the floor, amplified and widespread. She growled out at Hutch.

“Damn,” observed Hutch. His tone was pouting. “I was sure that would work.”

Kate reached across Hutch’s keyboard and messed with a few keys.  Talia felt the cage around her power down, her fur no longer on end for any reason than her own anger.  Then Kate crossed the wet floor to crouch in front of the cage door.

“So how do you do it?” she asked the wolf.  “What makes you switch back?”

Talia bared her teeth and stayed curled low, even her tail flared.  Mark crouched beside Kate, a grin on his face.  “I don’t think she’s going to tell us.”

“Of course not, stupid,” returned Kate, smirking.  “Wolves can’t talk.  But she could shift back and answer me, save us all a lot of trouble.”

Mark shook his head, reached out and closed the door for Kate’s protection; Talia was none-too-subtle about her hatred for the Argent.

“If she’s so comfortable as a wolf, we’ll just have to take our time.  Get her feeling more chatty,” said Kate.  She smiled at Talia, her usual vicious self, no different than her father.

 

***


	5. Chapter 5

The idea that he could permanently change a person, just by touch, was intimidating.  Derek would be all over Scott or Isaac under the same magic.  They hadn't been taken though. It was different with Stiles.  As usual, Stiles was his own special case.

Derek wanted to be in Stiles' space now simply because he couldn't trust his senses.  Even after sleeping in Derek's bed for hours, Stiles didn't smell right.  All Peter had done was ruffle Stiles' hair when he got back and Stiles smelled briefly like Peter under the harsh foreign scents he couldn’t trace.  It was a family scent at least, still pack, but not right.  It wasn't until then that Derek had believed them when they said he had been marking Stiles because it hit him on a gut level as _wrong_.  He made a hard rule that Peter was not allowed to touch anymore.  Stiles huffed at that, darkly amused.  Derek rubbed a pillow over his head to make the added smell stop.  Stiles helped.  But in the end he still just _wasn't there_.

Until it was sorted out, Stiles refused to call anyone or go anywhere.  He was better off missing than untraceable.  And until he had his own scent back, until he didn’t smell like whatever had happened to him, he wasn’t leaving where he felt safe.

"So you're just going to take over his place?" Peter asked.  He at least thought it was rude.  Derek stared at him, bit his tongue on asking his uncle to go play in traffic.  Harassing Stiles wasn’t why they had gone to him about it; they wanted ideas, not another annoyance.  Stiles looked pointedly to the injuries still uncovered on his torso then glared flatly at Peter, too.

"Point taken," the man said.  Derek scoffed and shook his head, figuring then that Peter would leave it alone.  He was wrong. "I'm still going to tell Melissa."

"No!" It almost dragged Stiles out of his slouch in the middle of Derek's bed.  Derek stood instead.

"Just don't," he said.  There was plenty of warning in his tone and stance.  "We'll figure it out."

Peter shook his head.  "Or we go to Melissa and your mother and we ask for help.  Like adults.  _Networking_.  It's useful."

"He said no," returned Derek. "You want to start problems?"

Peter scoffed. "That's a stupid question," he said. "Of course I do."

Derek didn't take that well. Peter pointed at Stiles. "They set the kid on _fire_.  Derek.  While I'm kind of _in love_ with the karma of it, you'll have to excuse me for not wanting to tangle with them.  So instead of letting the two of you sit here and hug it out, I think we should take it to the people who will _do something_ about it."

"Go away."  Stiles glared at the wall but he was inviting Peter to take his opinions elsewhere.  Peter looked to Derek.  He shook his head at his uncle.

"Don't tell anyone," said Derek again.  Peter was convinced they had both lost their minds and he left rather than talk to a couple of brick walls.

"He's not going to keep his mouth shut," said Derek.  He found his cell phone and shut it off.  "In about an hour, maybe less, _everyone_ will be up here."

Stiles nodded, a sniffle escaped.  Derek sat down on the edge of the bed, confused.  He could see Stiles wiped at his face but he couldn't sense it.  He had no idea what was going on.

"I, uh. I gotta borrow a shirt," said Stiles.  "Long sleeves. Please."

Derek nodded, distracted. He looked back at Stiles.  "They're going to see you anyway.  You can't hide it.  They’re going to ask..."

"It wasn't witches, okay?" Stiles blurted.  Apparently he had been waiting for Peter to leave to clear up the mystery.  He probably would have kept quiet if Peter hadn’t gone off about witches again, too.  Derek frowned at him.  Stiles shook his head, rubbed at an ash spot on his arm.  "They were Druids. The ones who taught Blake. They're a _little_ pissed we killed their hard work."

Derek stared at Stiles.  And _that_ was why they had gone for Stiles, gone for Derek's scent on someone else.  Jennifer Blake.

"We didn't kill her," said Derek, confused.  “She left on her own. It’s not on us.”

"Yeah, I tried that. They didn't believe me."

"Are they emissaries? Are there wolves involved?"

Stiles shook his head, shrugged half-heartedly. "Just you."

It hit Derek hard.  Stiles leaned against him, buried his face in Derek's shoulder.  He tried to find his voice after that, to apologize, anything, and Stiles just shook his head at him.

"Just shut up, man," he said.  He wrapped his arms around Derek, a pitiful defense against the world considering the shape Stiles was in.  "It all goes right back to you and I don’t care.  Why do you think I don't wanna tell anyone?"

"Because you smell like _them_? Because you're hurt? And you're scared.”  Derek was quiet, too aware of his own compounded guilt to raise his voice. Peter was right though; neither of them were very smart about each other if Stiles was keeping what happened shut up in his head to prevent trouble for Derek.  When Stiles didn’t argue any of Derek’s assumptions, he pulled back to get Stiles to look at him.  “Don't hide something we could use to fix this. It's not your job to protect me."

"Screw you," muttered Stiles. "That's _so_ not how this works."

He didn't move away, if anything he pressed closer, but Derek had pissed him off.  He kept his head ducked to Derek’s shoulder and refused to look at him. It frustrated Derek, which was exactly why Stiles had done it.  The werewolf let his eyes flash red, an intimidation that Stiles was generally immune to lately.  Stiles bared his teeth, mocking Derek’s empty threat, but something else happened that nearly gave Derek a heart-attack.  When he saw it, Derek twisted to shove Stiles back on the bed, careful of his injuries but not messing around.  The teen let him, even tolerated the protective pin for the most part, too confused to argue. In better light, Derek caught his chin and stared at his eyes.

“What?” The question confused Derek even more; how could Stiles _not_ know? Derek’s eyes blinked red and he let a little of his weight trap Stiles against the bed. It triggered the defensive response again and Derek let him go quickly. Stiles’ eyes had flashed, a bright blue that bled in from the edges and faded under his usual light brown.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he said. Stiles stared up at him, still unsettled by the attack.

“Do _what_?” he insisted. He tugged a wrist free of Derek’s loose hold and hit a fist at his thigh to make it clear Derek wasn’t getting away with scaring him, even if it was for science.

“Your eyes started to change,” Derek reported. He still knelt over Stiles’ waist, too distracted to bother moving. Stiles hit his leg again to get him to back off.

“That is not the strangest thing that’s happened to me this week, okay? So totally not on my list of shit to worry about,” said Stiles.  Derek didn’t have the first clue how to make everything right again.  He held his hands up, palms out in invitation for the abuse instead.  He didn’t want to move. Stiles squinted up at him but settled.  He punched at Derek’s hand because it had been offered and Stiles didn’t pass up opportunities for retaliation.  Then he caught it and hung on, mostly relaxed.

“Lemme up,” Stiles said finally. Derek pulled a face that showed he disagreed with the idea.  Stiles bucked at him and Derek curled to the side, swung his leg over to let Stiles sit up.  He didn’t, instead stayed where he was.  In the month since Tahoe, Stiles had claimed the center of Derek’s bed once before and it had taken a lot of work to talk him out of it.  Now he looked like he wasn’t giving it back until his dad showed up to make him.  Stiles still held Derek’s hand and tugged on it, edging himself into Derek’s shoulder as he pulled the man over him like arranging a blanket. Derek kept his weight off of him.

“Your back is torn up. That’s going to hurt,” he said in protest to Stiles’ efforts. Stiles narrowed his eyes, his expression a series of straight lines amid bruises and spots of bad road rash.

“I can not actually express to you how much I don’t care right now,” he said. Derek relaxed, let Stiles take as much weight against his side as he wanted to be pinned by, and ducked his head to get at the unscorched skin at Stiles’ neck. He couldn’t catch the familiar scent, but they still had some time alone to correct the problem.

***

After the first round, whenever the Druids came too close to Stiles, they started to look ill. Like he was causing them pain.  That was something he approved of and could get behind five-hundred-and-fifty-percent because they had _set him on fire_.  Twice.  Green and blue and fucking purple fire. But he didn't know why.

The one who had introduced himself as Tal wandered into Stiles' little corner of the cellar, collecting things from a bag. On his way by, he scowled and reached for Stiles again.  Hanging from a support beam above, there wasn't much give when Stiles tried to dodge.  He turned and moved his head.

"I have to see if it worked.  If you're clear, we are done here.  If it didn't, we do it again," Tal said.

"Don't puke on me," Stiles muttered.  He still kept his face turned into his arm.

"You can thank your precious alpha," said Tal.  "His claim is nauseous. That's what is taking so damn long. Once it is gone, only then can we begin with the rest."

The man sighed and caught Stiles' chin. The Druids had strange ways of sensing things, judging Derek's hold on Stiles only by how sick they became when they kissed him. Stiles hadn't actually been puked on, but it had been a close call. Tal had another one and walked away retching. Stiles shivered.

He had about two minutes before they attacked him with the clay and set him on fire again. Different colors of fire, searing his skin and causing pain under it without actually burning anything. He shoved himself back against the tree, tried to get out of the fires. The tree was the only help he had, but it couldn’t dampen the flames once they started. The scrape of the old roots probably did more damage that it was worth but he wasn’t on fire where the tree protected him. It was terrifying. And somehow kind of cool. And Stiles withstood it because it meant they couldn't get the pack off of him, he was still a part of it. He still had a chance.

It wasn't until Rowan announced him clean much later that Stiles broke down.

 

***

Stiles woke up swearing and fighting.  Derek didn’t bother to dodge, he was stronger and already pinned Stiles into the bed from the way Stiles had pried under him before he fell asleep.  Derek kept himself in Stiles’ space until he woke up enough to remember where he was.  The eerie blue echo around the brown eyes faded as recognition sunk in.  Stiles caught on to Derek’s belt at his hip to keep him from moving away.

“You’re safe,” Derek said quietly.  “You fell asleep.”

“Sorry.” Stiles looked off over Derek’s shoulder, still distressed by whatever had hit him while he slept.  It hadn’t been dreams because he wasn’t far enough under to dream; Derek had been listening to him breathe, tracking his heartbeat.  Now he watched him, frowned at the pained look on Stiles’ expressive features.

“Are you better?” he asked, already suspicious of what the answer would be.  He was surprised when Stiles answered honestly, a slight shake of the head and a hand that tugged at Derek’s side before flopping back to the bed.  He tried for a more positive answer but it wasn’t happening.

“Nope,” said Stiles.  Derek touched his forehead to Stiles’ temple.

“Then go back to sleep,” he told him. It wasn’t quite an order, but he wasn’t kidding around with it either.  The sleep wasn’t the coma that Stiles had been in earlier, so he obviously needed it.  Derek scooped his arm under Stiles’ and up under his shoulder to fold him into a hug.  Stiles wanted Derek’s weight at his side and Derek wanted to hang on to him, to make up for the loss of the senses he had gotten used to relying on.  It was a compromise.  Stiles didn’t seem to mind. He stared at Derek with the weird blue eyes until he nodded off again.

 

***


	6. Chapter 6

The problem with trying to manipulate his father was that Gerard was better at it.  He always had been.  So when asking the old man to cooperate, it never actually happened unless it was Gerard's idea first.  Asking for information?  It was like asking a librarian to find a book: they came back with six books instead and there were no guarantees that any one of them was actually useful.

"We don't have time for this," said Chris as he tried again to steer his father off of his stories.

"Of course you do," said Gerard.  "Talia there is very patient."

"This isn't about Talia," returned Chris.  "I really don't care what you-"

"Oh, no, son. If you think _I_ know things, you haven’t talked to Talia," Gerard replied.  He was smiling.  Never a good sign.  Chris cut a look to Talia. The werewolf was a silent pillar of banked anger, but she held her head at an angle, curious.  Like she needed _one more reason_ to hate the Argent name. That was all Gerard could possibly offer up. Talia caught Chris looking at her and waved it off. Chris sighed and shook his head.

"Fine."

"Did Talia tell you she was the first to know of the cancer?" Gerard asked.  Chris was surprised despite himself.

"She thought I didn't know, snapped off about it during a visit.  But I knew.  Long before it showed up, I knew it was coming.  That was why I liked the boys' idea to hunt up a cure in the first place," Gerard carried on.  Talia bristled, her hands clamping tightly on her crossed arms as she listened.

"That's why you broke the truce with the Hales?" asked Chris.  "You're going to tell me you just wanted to make the world a better place and cure _cancer_?"

"Screw the world," said Gerard, amused.  "I just wanted their healing.  Mark wanted to be human again.  We had a mutual interest."

"It did you a lot of good," sniped Chris.

"It was worth it," said Gerard.  The gloating smile turned dark and he stopped his staring contest with Talia.  He looked to Chris again.

"It took her two years to break.  Mark killed her _family_ and yet in a matter of months really, she was in his so-called pack.  She helped train them. She stopped fighting the trials and tests and sat for any idea we put together to try.  We _learned_ so much from _her_.  Pack loyalty my ass," said Gerard with a sneer.  "Their lives traded off in just two years.  Now she wants to find a boy she doesn't even know?  You're being played, son."

Talia had set her jaw and listened, staring at Gerard from somewhere far away. The woman didn't argue, didn't set the record straight. She just let the old man lie. Chris kept her in sight, wary of Gerard's blatant provocations in a public nursing home.

"You and Mark were played," said Chris. "And if I'm being played now, fine. We have a mutual interest."

Gerard gave an unamused huff, dry laughter at his son's failings as a hunter. "And if you're screwing her, you and Mark have a mutual bitch."

Chris took a step closer to his father on reflex. It wasn’t that he didn’t know exactly what kind of an asshole his father could be; he knew all about the prejudices and the hatred because Chris still fought with those daily himself. Talia Hale was a very complicated subject for him lately. But wolf or not, Chris was tired of the smug abuse being heaped on and Gerard had just hit the last nerve.

He hadn’t expected Talia to cut him off, a subtle movement keeping Chris angled behind her and away from Gerard.

“I think we’re done here,” said Talia, her voice quiet and calm but no less dangerous. It amazed Chris that the woman still had something in reserve. He sure as hell didn’t.

 

***

 

"You missed.  Do it again."  Talia was angry at having to repeat herself, but she couldn't possibly care less about whether the hunters learned to fight to harness their wolves or not.  They had become werewolves physically, but mentally they were nothing more than hunters, out to kill.  Their instinct could guide that; Talia saw no reason to teach them if they weren't willing to acknowledge and accept the _wolves_ as valid.

"Watch your tone." Mark sidled up beside her to look down on his betas.  Talia raised an eyebrow at him and stayed still.

"You watch yours," she said coolly.  "You want respect as an alpha, you teach it through hierarchy.  And you don't learn from _outsiders_ , you learn from pack."

A slow grin hit Mark's face. "So, what? You're in _my_ pack?"

Talia couldn't answer and her silence spoke plenty.  Mark smiled broadly, sized her up as the other two sparred on the hill below the deck.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," said Mark. Talia ignored the dig.  She pointed toward the fight.

"Ricky can't even fight like a cat. You'd be better off getting him a gun," she said, snappish.  "Or _you_ teach him."

Mark looked over the rail at where Ricky could only just barely keep his claws engaged in his fight.  He shrugged.  "I'll show him what you showed me."

"You do that. He'll pay attention."

“I’m more interested in what else you can teach me,” said Mark. He eased into her space and Talia narrowed her eyes at him.

“I already told you. The wolf would make you go mad. You can only learn the full shift when you are grounded enough to keep your identity, to still know yourself, even as a wolf,” she said. “You. Are not. You are no where near strong enough.”

Mark bared his teeth and tried to intimidate her. Talia didn’t rise to it. “That only proves my point, Mark. No.”

The hunter seemed to give her words their due consideration and he pulled back. The tense staring match kept up until Talia finally turned her gaze away.

"I won't forget what you _didn't_ just say about pack, Talia.  Don't think you've gained anything."  And then Mark was over the rails to teach hands-on what Talia was only _allowed_ to teach the betas in theory.  She bared her teeth at his back, silent protest to her unwilling status.  She knew Mark now, what he was capable of, what to expect.  She should have kept her mouth shut, should have fought harder.  But omega was alone, and Talia would rather a pack that she _hated_ to alone.

 

***

 

The glare Talia pulled up managed to do little more than rattle Gerard's cage, but the smug expression flickered briefly to surprise and that was enough.  They were in a hurry and had to deal with nurses and secretaries answering phones just down the hall.  The problem was that Gerard knew it, too.  He could talk forever.  But Talia wouldn’t tolerate it that long anymore.

They would be back when Talia knew better how to handle the man.  Her only current idea was to bury a ball point pen in his kidneys and let him feel it _heal_ inside, but she wouldn't do that with Chris around to stop her.  Gerard was sick, but he smelled like a wolf under the decaying scent.  He would heal eventually, but who knew how long that could take.  Talia settled for looking forward to it when her cell rang.  She excused herself without a word and took it to the hall. Chris followed her out.  The trip to the hall turned into a quick exit via the elevator.  Talia said hardly three words, listening to the call intently the whole time.

"That was Peter," she told Chris as she ended the call.  She shoved at the doors out of the rehab home, needing fresh air, and braced herself for the rain.  "Stiles showed up."

"Where?" Chris asked.  They climbed into the SUV.

"Derek's place," said Talia.  "There's something wrong.  Peter said not to tell the kids."

"Call Casey," said Chris. Talia waved the phone at him to show the line was already connecting.

 

***

 

The apartment door opened on its own a little over an hour after Peter had vanished through it.  Nobody bothered to knock.  Derek had about two seconds more warning than Stiles did.  He had just enough time to roll out of bed and scrabble for what passed as the hamper, tossing Stiles the first long-sleeved shirt he found in it.  Stiles made a face at wearing something out of Derek's unwashed laundry but he struggled into it; the look on his face said he caught on to why Derek went hamper-diving.  Derek stood in the corner and glowered at the big opening in the wall as he tried to get his own shirt over his head and not on backwards or inside out while staying out of sight.  A door was definitely happening at some point in the near future.

“Stiles! Hey!” It was Scott’s voice, worried, angry, and impatient.  Derek glanced at Stiles when he saw the flinch.  Even buried in a thick henley, Stiles was suddenly shivering.  Derek jabbed a thumb toward the door, silently mouthed a question about kicking them out or not.  Stiles waved him off. Trying to salvage what he could of the situation, Derek stepped out of hiding to the doorway.

“In here,” he called out to the uninvited guests in the loft.  Scott bolted and slid in the room past Derek, leaving the bigger wolf flattened against the bricks to avoid getting bowled over.  Sheriff Stilinski followed at a much slower, less-relaxed pace.  He gave Derek a disapproving once-over.

“Couldn’t return a phone call in two days?” he asked.  Derek just pointed him into the room his son had taken over.

“There’s an explanation for it,” said Derek.  “He’s just not feeling real chatty so we only go over it once.”

Melissa followed the sheriff, then a very edgy Chris, and Talia brought up the rear as the last of them.  Peter had closed the door and trotted upstairs before Derek could throttle him.  When he turned back to his bedroom, Derek was almost afraid to step foot in it.  Stiles hadn’t given up his spot smack in the center of the bed, Scott had climbed up next to him, and Stilinski stood with Melissa near the window.  Chris hovered near the door, opposite the silently enraged Talia.  They weren’t being told to go away, but Stiles wasn’t jumping up to greet them like he normally would. He had his knees drawn up and his arms crossed over them, his chin tucked into an elbow as he let Scott check him over.  He had been cleaned up, hid under baggy clothes, but there was no way to hide the rash-like burns that framed Stiles’ face.  It looked bad.  The sheriff looked over at the door and Derek shamelessly hid behind his mother.

“Somebody wanna let us in the loop here?” Stilinski asked, the question aimed at Derek because Scott was still quietly trying to get verbal responses from Stiles. So far Stiles hadn’t managed much more than a “Hi,” which was probably worse than saying nothing at all. Derek held up his hands to call for a truce.  He told them about the phones being silent for three days while he and Peter worked on renovating their own corners of the loft, pointed out the stacked up wood and shop tools around the room as the only proof he had.  The sheriff told him about Stiles’ disappearance and Stiles confirmed that with a new level of quiet, and Derek reluctantly admitted the rough shape Stiles was in when he showed up at the door that morning.  Stiles glared at him for it until he caught Melissa watching him and found the window to stare out instead.

“But he smells wrong,” said Scott.  Derek sagged, swearing under his breath from the reminder of something he had been working for an hour to forget.  Talia glanced over at him.  Scott was still working on it and Stiles stared at his friend, worried.  The usually quick Stiles was still _stuck_ on what to tell anyone.  Stilinski tracked between Stiles and Scott, not oblivious to Stiles’ unusual state of anti-communicative.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Stilinski asked, patient.  He wasn’t an idiot, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to press Stiles in to talking so he would stick to Scott as the safer teenager to question.  Scott tugged on Stiles’ arm but Stiles stayed tucked over his knees, protecting his chest and stomach injuries.

“He’s hurt,” offered up Derek. “That’s part of it.”

Melissa offered to take a look and Stiles finally found his voice enough to croak out a “no, thanks,” which Scott completely didn’t approve of. Neither did anyone else in the room but Derek wasn’t going to make Stiles do anything.  Talking was apparently on the list of things that Stiles wasn’t going to do.

“From what I’ve been able to get out of him, he was attacked by Druids,” said Derek.  Stiles glared at him for mentioning the Druids and Derek ignored it.  They had already had that discussion.  “Peter and I thought witches when we first saw him. But Stiles said Druids. Mad ones.”

“Another darach?” Stilinski was white as a sheet as he looked over at Stiles.  His son peeked up at him over his elbow.  He didn’t like learning that there had been more than one new darach involved and he glared back at Derek for offering it up.

“Did you know Druids were teachers?” Stiles blurted the question quickly, startling the sheriff.  He was still hiding, but he made a play to deflect some of the sheriff’s fear away from Derek.  “That’s what they did, just collected knowledge and shared it and they didn’t have to pay taxes. Like bards only less... musical.”

Stilinski blinked at his son, not quite catching on.  He motioned toward where Stiles sat curled up.  “So you’re saying they just sat you down at a desk and, what, reviewed your trig homework?  Tax free?  For two days?”

Stiles flinched . “No... they were Blake’s teachers. They called her Julia but I know who - They taught _her_.”

“Oh, shit.”  Stilinski looked from Stiles to Scott and then Derek.  Melissa took a half step back, surprised.  If Stiles wasn’t actively radiating vibes that screamed _Don’t touch me!_ then he would have been tackled in three hugs at once.

“I think they’re after Derek, so I think I’m okay now,” said Stiles.  He thankfully didn’t mention that he no longer smelled like Derek, because pack or not, the sheriff wouldn’t have taken that sidenote very well.  Talia and Scott were on quiet alert, both of them recognizing the lie for what it was. Stiles cut Scott a sideways glare that threatened his life if he told, then he went right on lying.  “It took them this long to figure out I wasn’t him and then they beat me up and let me leave.”

In the doorway, still leaned against the wall and looking in around his mom, Derek’s jaw dropped.  He gave a cough, just to kick-start his ability to breathe again.

Even Chris, standing in the door trying to be as invisible as Derek hoped to be, was disturbed by the obvious and unapologetic lie from Stiles.  "I call bullshit."

Stiles glared over at him until somebody moved and he flinched.  Stilinski crouched at the end of the bed, his elbows resting on the mattress for balance.  It made for one less person towering above the curled up ball of Stiles.

“Kiddo, I _met_ the last darach we had in town.  Witnesses don’t get beat up and let loose again with them,” he said.  “So I’m going to have to stick with Chris on this.  Bullshit.”

Stiles stared at him. His expression said fear but Derek couldn’t smell it.  Talia grumbled something and shifted, uncomfortable.  Scott looked wired, like he needed to go take a run.

“Besides,” continued the sheriff.  “Your story doesn’t hold up on _your_ end.  If things had gone as you just said, I wouldn’t have been able to drag you to within five miles of Derek. You expect me to believe that _you_ would lead the bad guys right to _him_?”

Stiles’ stubborn adherence to a bad lie faded.  “It’s not his fault. So I’m gonna stay here until it’s done.”

“Until what’s done?” asked Stilinski.  Stiles shook his head.

“I don’t know! I’m just staying.”

Sitting beside Stiles, Scott suddenly jumped like something had grabbed him. He looked from Stiles to Derek.

“I know that smell,” he blurted. Stiles cringed. Derek moved into the room, waiting.

“What is it?”

“Shut up, Scotty,” Stiles said quietly. Scott stared at him, taking the subtle threat as a confirmation. He looked around, tried not to panic as it started to sink in.

“He’s dying.”

***


	7. Chapter 7

"No." Stiles wasn’t budging.  He had pinned himself against the wall at the head of the bed and looked ready to go to war to defend it.  There were six other people in the room and each one looked at him, more worried than before.  Stiles’ father was near a panic attack himself.  No one could reach Stiles without potentially threatening him, and even Scott had backed off to try getting Stiles to calm down.  It obviously wasn’t working.

Talia kept her distance but, trauma-case to newer-trauma-case, tried to get through to him.  "He'll know, Stiles. I promise you, we can trust _him_."

Stiles just shook his head.  "No."

Derek had already seen Stiles more coherent earlier in the afternoon and rolled his eyes.  "You need to consider expanding your vocabulary at this point."

"Nunca.  Nein. _No_. There, three _languages_ covered,” said Stiles, snappish.  “I'm _not_ going to see Deaton."

"Yes you are," said Derek.  He used the alpha-tone, blatantly tried to cheat.

Stiles cut him a sideways glare.  "No I'm not. And you sure as hell can't make me now.  I'm scrubbed from the pack, growl all you want."

That didn’t go over well with anyone.  It was news to Derek, too. The fear in the room amplified, and even Peter showed up in the doorway to see what the hell was going on.  Melissa and Derek took it the hardest; Melissa’s eyes flashed red at what she saw as a threat to a pack on her territory and under her protection.  Derek stepped toward the bed.  Stiles responded to fear earlier, he was surrounded by it, and Derek was tired of it.  "I'm not arguing anymore."

"Good,” said Stiles. He repeated himself very clearly. “No."

Derek stood against the bedside, opposite where Scott still sat.  Stiles could pick any direction to retreat in and it would only get him closer to someone who would drag him out of the room and off to see Deaton.  Derek motioned between himself and Scott, pointedly drawing Stiles’ attention to their positions. "Last chance to change your mind and walk on your own."

Stiles wouldn’t quite meet Derek’s gaze but he was angry, not defensive now.  Less cornered and afraid, and more looking for a fight.  "I am about _this close_ to hating you.  So many reasons."

"Lie,” said Derek, easily seeing through it.  He pointed toward the door.  “Get your shoes."

Scott pressed back out of the way as Stiles headed for the edge of the bed to do as he had been ordered.

***

When Stiles followed Talia to the SUV, his clueless father stopped by his cruiser and just stared.  He had been actively avoided the whole way down to the street.  Stiles _barricaded_ himself behind Derek and Scott.  It wasn't natural that Stiles would be silent for so long, that he wouldn't even look at his dad.  It was probably Casey’s imagination, but tucked under layers of clothes that weren't his own, Stiles looked small and fragile.  Stilinski at least recognized the hoodie, but Stiles had the hood up as just one more thing to hide behind.

The rain dampened the lights in the lot but he still saw the strange marks across his son's face as Stiles climbed into the back of the SUV with little more than a visual check to find his dad. Then he grabbed Derek's jacket sleeve and pulled the wolf in the truck with him. Scott scrambled up into the SUV behind Talia, too.

Chris noticed the unexpected rider and stopped to look over at Casey.

"We'll meet you at Deaton's," he said. Casey nodded and got in behind the wheel of the cruiser. Melissa sat in the passenger seat, fidgeting with the necklace she wore as she stared out at the SUV.

"What the hell is going on?" Casey asked the windshield. Melissa looked over at him.

"What do you mean?"

"My kid! He's not acting like my kid..." Casey waved out the window as Stiles disappeared into the truck. “The kid who kicks monster-ass and then runs off to take a pop quiz at school. I finally get used to _that_ kid and now...”

"That's shock, Koz," Melissa said quietly.  "Whatever happened... He's trying not to shut down.  Don't take it personal."

Casey shook his head quickly.  "I'm not. It's... Every other thing, Stiles just bounced right back. This... This is not looking good."

"Every other thing probably caught up finally," said Melissa.  She tugged her jacket closed a little better around the sling her arm was still tucked into. She had her own physical proof of the hard month they had all been through.  So did Casey.  And now, so did Stiles.  As if the cracked ribs from before Christmas hadn't been enough.  Or the clawed scratches at his neck and jaw.  Or any of the other bruises that had finally started to fade before Stiles had disappeared.

The thought that the inside wounds might match up to the outside after so long was terrifying to Stiles' dad.  On the heels of that was his son's current default to avoiding him.  Casey could recognize shock, he didn't take it personal that the kid needed to sort it out for himself.  He just wasn't used to it, didn't have the first idea how to _help_ Stiles do what he needed in order to heal when the kid wouldn't even look at him.

"Whether he wants me involved or not, I'm going to figure out how to help," said Casey.  "There's gotta be something."

***

Talia sat in the middle row of seats, her attention split between Derek and Stiles.  One was angry and held his shoulders stiff, alert and defensive against the world, while the other was angry and fidgeted, chewed his nails to hide that he was also scared.  It probably didn’t help either one of them that Talia and Scott both hung over the back of their own seats to stare at them.  Stiles seemed better at ignoring them than Derek.

“I don’t want to go see Deaton.  I told you why.  You suck,” Stiles complained at Derek.  Derek set his jaw.

“You’re going,” he said.

“Why?” asked Scott.  He was more defensive about his boss than anything.  “Deaton’s always helped us before.”

With more effort than was necessary, Stiles shoved his layers of sleeves up his arms and held them so Scott could take a look.  “Because _Druids_.”

Even in the dark, Talia could see the red skin and burn marks, places where it looked like someone had taken sandpaper to Stiles’ skin.  Scott’s annoyed expression faded off, surprised.  Talia reached carefully behind the seat and gently took Stiles’ hand, a subtle trick to back him away from the offensive position he had taken against his friend.  It let her get a look at the marks.  Different degrees of burns decorated the skin, from road-rash rough spots to bubbled welts that had turned unnatural colors instead of the usual burned red.  He was smeared in what looked like ash in places.  The handprints stood out to her lined up beside her careful hold.  Derek looked away sharply.  Stiles tugged his arm back and pulled the sleeves down.

“It’s how they cut me out of the pack,” he said. Talia looked from Stiles to Derek, neither one looking at her or at each other.

“They told you the pack marked you?” she asked, guessing. She might as well have kicked Derek in the shin. Stiles was suspiciously silent. Talia leaned back and tapped her son on the knee. Derek looked over at her, reluctant.

"I _didn't_ know about that," said Derek quickly.

"I know.  That's why I want to be sure you understand now, you did nothing wrong," said his mom, older and wiser and _years_ behind on telling her children what they should have been taught.  Beside her, Scott looked confused.

“Know what?” he asked.  He wouldn’t let it go.  Stiles glared at him a moment before giving up.

“He marked me. They had to... burn it off,” he said, reluctantly.  Then the fight came back.  “And I swear to God, Scott, if you tell my dad, I’m _killing_ you...”

“Scott would have done it too,” Talia said, interrupting the protests.  She looked between the three of them.  “Maybe it’s a little different, but some of these might be from him.”  Talia motioned toward Stiles’ arms again and the teen tucked them to his gut self-consciously.  She had their attention, but she spoke mostly to Derek.  Her son carried more of it than Scott could.

"It was instinctive.  You were trying to protect him, and it did exactly what it was supposed to.”

Derek caught Stiles’ arm, tugged him out of his defensive huddle to make his point clearer.  “ _This_ is not protecting him.”

Talia shook her head.  “He's just a kid, and he _surrounds_ himself with wolves.  By marking him, you give the other _wolves_ a reason to back off of an otherwise easy target.  The both of you would have, without even realizing it."

“And there’s no way any of us would have known they could do this,” added Stiles quietly. He finally looked over at Derek, drawing some hint of civility back out of him. Encouraged, Talia nodded.

"So it's not a territory thing?" Even Scott sounded wary.

"It has _everything_ to do with territory," said Talia.  She met Scott’s gaze to make sure he was following her on it.  "If Stiles wasn't _your_ territory, there would be nothing to protect.  Next time you're around Lydia or Danny, pay attention and you'll pick up more than just the pack on them.  The twins do the same thing to them."

Derek looked very frustrated. "Some warning would have been nice," was all he said. Talia shrugged, shook her head; there was no way for him to have known about it without pack old enough to warn him.

"Alright. Then Peter was your first hint," said Talia. "From what everyone's said, he bit Scott, attacked Lydia? But he _offered_ the bite to Stiles, some time after Scott became a wolf.  And Peter has obviously left him alone since?”  Talia looked to Stiles for confirmation and got a very quick nod.

A light bulb seemed to click on for Scott then and he nodded.  “Stiles tangled with the alphas, the twins saw me with him at school _all_ the time. But they went after Danny and Lydia.”

“Respect for your territory," said Talia.

Derek seemed to catch on then, hindsight showing him instances where the marking he had unknowingly done had been a help instead of the source of pain. Talia nodded.

"He’ll need closer watching until it clears up. But you need to know now that you didn't curse him," she said, encouraging. Derek gave a gradual nod, his attention going back to the window.

"He showed me the prints and I thought it was just _one more thing_ I'd..." Derek went quiet, shook his head.  He met his mom's gaze. "Thanks."

"There are some things you don't have to carry, Derek.  Don’t blame yourself for this.  You didn't know this could happen either."

That startled Derek.  He disappeared quickly behind the set jaw and furrowed brow.  "Who told you?"

Stiles and Scott looked on, not following the change in subject, but Talia cringed; the subject Derek wasn’t getting at- the fire- was the last thing she wanted to bring up.  _Ever_.  But there it was and they both knew it.  With them sitting in the back of Chris Argent's car, Chris less than three feet away and silent.  Talia shook her head at her son's distracted timing.

"Kate.  So I know very little that I would trust.  But if any of it were true?  I still think I know you." She nodded toward a suddenly understanding and quiet Stiles.  "Don't beat yourself up for this, too. It's not your fault. Only theirs for twisting it."

Derek seemed to shut her out, listening but not letting any of it get through his head. After six years of living with it, there was nothing Talia could say to make it better; she carried her own guilt too tightly to let it go so easily.  Her son was no different.

“You were the same age then that he is now,” she pointed out. “Can you honestly see him doing anything any different than you did?” It was possibly cheating, a lower cut than necessary, but it was enough to get through and Derek looked back up at her.  She pounced on the hope that he was paying attention.  “Derek... The pup trusts you, and for the first time in a long time, he’s indefensible.  It’s in everyone’s best interests if you give yourself a break on what’s already happened, and stay _present_.  It’s not your fault.”

Derek stared at her, for just a moment looking more like himself than the rough front he showed to everyone _not-Stiles_. The first hint of a grin tugged at his lips.

“I have to do that anyway lately,” he said quietly.  “If somebody isn’t watching him every minute, he breaks something.”

“I do not,” cut in a very subdued Stiles.  Derek raised an eyebrow at him.

“Half the time himself, from what I’ve seen,” added Talia.

“Oh come on! This doesn’t count!” Stiles flailed his arms in the small space of the back seat.  “This is... the world’s worst freakin’ luck.  _Druids_.  Not my fault.”

Scott reached back and shoved at Stiles. “Stop blaming Deaton, dude.  He’s gonna help.”

“ _That_! That’s _your_ fault!” said Stiles, a little animation creeping back. “What were you thinking! Telling _my dad_ I’m _dying_. Really, Scott? _Come on_...”

Fighting off a headache for everyone, Derek calmly reached over and held a hand over Stiles’ mouth.  It was a very strong hint and the teens took it. Scott looked a little too smug so Stiles reached over and smacked him upside the head.  The back of the Argent SUV would have become a Stooges episode if they hadn’t pulled into the vet’s parking lot thirty very long seconds later.  Then Stiles went pale and quiet and ducked back into his seat belt to cinch it tighter.

 

***


	8. Chapter 8

Any other time in recent history, Stiles was the first one to go to Deaton.  Now, he had to be pulled out of the car.  Once he was out, he was there and accepted it, but he kept behind Derek or Scott.  When Deaton showed up, Stiles kept Derek between them.  Crowded in the protected privacy of the exam room, Derek gave the former emissary the rundown they hadn't given the group and the sheriff glared like never before.  Derek very carefully didn't look at the man.  Deaton tried to dismiss everyone from the room and it didn't go over well with Stiles.

"Derek stays," he said.  If there was any arguing, he was headed for the door.  Nobody did, though the sheriff obviously thought about it.  Deaton waited until the door was closed, waited for some kind of hopeful sign from the usually inquisitive Stiles, and was disappointed.  Stiles stood angled with Derek between them like a shield.

"Have I done something in this?" Deaton asked, apparently genuinely worried that an apparition of himself was involved.

"It's been a bad week," was Stiles' reply. "I've seen enough of what you're capable of for a few _lifetimes_."

"The capacity for harm is matched and exceeded by the capacity to heal," said Deaton.  "But I can't help if you don't want me to."

Derek crossed his arms, still offering Stiles the shield to hide behind, but no less concerned.  "Stiles... Let him help."

"If you don't feel safe then I can't help," Deaton added.  "So no matter what the others say, it is only up to you."

"If you _touch_ me, he causes you _irreparable_ damage," said Stiles finally.  He very seriously required a verbal contract just to ask for help.  Deaton looked to Derek for confirmation, saw the reluctance and gradual agreement the same as Stiles could.  The emissary nodded his head.

"Agreed then."

Stiles seemed to relax a little.  Deaton found his chair and sat down, letting the other two fend for themselves with the stakes of the conversation so clearly drawn.  "I need you to tell me everything, Stiles. Everything."

 

***

 

The last rite was the worst. Maybe it was the loss of the pack at the edges of Stiles' awareness that made it hurt more.  He was _alone_ and he could _feel_ that, for the first time in weeks.

That feeling just amplified everything else; the heat, the melting ash, the absolute freezing cold clay that seemed to be keeping the flame from actually burning his skin, the intense, bone-crushing pressure created in the space around the flames.  Stiles was pressed into the tree behind him but the flames didn't touch the bark.  The tree protected his back from only a fraction of it and the effort brought on a searing pain as the roots dug through the mud into flesh and seemed to just make the burn that much worse.  Even the tree had turned on him.  Everything in the air around him _burned_.  And when it stopped, he couldn't see, his eyes too light-blinded from the flames.

He finally saw shapes - fear a great big ominous motivator for getting his sight back - and what he saw made no sense.  The moth, bright white and bright red in the barely lit room, danced around his face.  The fragile wings moved easily, the moth not affected by the pressure Stiles felt pinning him against the tree roots.

Then Tal loomed behind the moth. He was the stronger of the two Druids, scarier, far less welcome than the friendly Rowan.  Stiles pulled back too fast and hit the tree too hard, the unexpected new pain startling him enough that he shouted something he couldn’t even remember saying.  Tal caught his face and Stiles swore at him.  The moth poked Stiles on the nose and skittered around in the air between them.  Tal took a breath and inhaled the moth like dust.  He trapped it into Stiles' mouth, blocking his attempts to breathe at all until Stiles swallowed the small fuzzy bug entirely whole.

 

***

 

"I don't know, I guess I passed out after that," said Stiles.  He sat on the table in the middle of the room, like he had developed a fear of walls.  His hands worked the threads loose from the hem of his borrowed jeans.  Stiles stared at the back of Derek's shoulder and Derek swore he could feel it.  His human shield was a barely contained mess on the inside; on the outside, he leaned back against the table with his arms crossed to protect himself more than appear intimidating. If Deaton noticed the pain on Derek's face as he listened to Stiles describe two days of torment, he had the grace not to acknowledge it.  He sat in his chair and was very careful not to move in a way that might risk him facing Stiles without Derek between them.

Stiles took a breath and seemed to shrug himself out of it.  "I just kinda looked around and I was where they found me in the first place. And I walked to Derek's."

Derek hung his head. Stiles had been almost _home_.  And he felt safer at the loft.  Well over a mile away, in the _rain_.

Deaton cleared his throat, looked up at Derek and then past him to Stiles.

"What you just described, Stiles?" he said carefully.  "Despite its violence, that was not an act of anger or retaliation.  They're trying to force a reincarnation.  Likely Julia’s."

Stiles' gaze snapped to Deaton.  Derek kept his head bowed but even he was surprised by the news.  The emissary stood, hesitant to startle Stiles but he needed to move.  Stiles just sat and listened.

"The burning was what they told you,” said Deaton.  He paced a little, thinking and sharing.  “They were trying to scrub you from the pack as much as the pack from you.  And if you were too close to the Nemeton, it wasn’t just the pack giving them trouble; the energy around the Nemeton is too unpredictable.  It would disturb a purification rite, even a very powerful one.  And that spell?  It was completely separate from the last one-"

Derek shook his head, brow furrowed by the very intense refusal the suggestion created.  He didn’t care that he interrupted.

"But it didn't work," he said.  Stiles' attention was on him like a sudden lifeline had opened up to be grabbed.

"It didn't?" asked Deaton.  "You said none of you can smell him.  He was gone for _two days_ for this and no one could track him."

"I didn't even know _anything_ was wrong at all," said Derek.  "And I should have been able to feel _something_ but-"

"So it worked," said Stiles, once again withdrawn.  Derek looked back at him and shook his head.

"It didn't.  Your eyes went blue when I scared you," he said.  Stiles ruffled at the implication he had been scared of Derek, but he nodded.  Derek looked back to Deaton.  "That's gotta be a pack thing.  Stiles has got claws in three packs.  Mine, Scott’s and Melissa’s.  The Druids only went after him, not the rest of us.  We're not letting him go.  Maybe they blocked him from sensing us, but just because I can’t smell him doesn’t mean he’s not mi- pack."

Deaton looked between them, debating.  He moved then, away from Derek but toward the table, watching Stiles.  The emissary willingly risked his arm to reach toward Stiles.  In the seconds it took Derek to unfold and block Deaton's hand from getting near him, Stiles' eyes flashed blue at the iris' edge.  It didn’t cover to the pupil as usual for the werewolves, but it was there.  Deaton smiled, withdrawing from Derek's space and the table.

"Maybe your theory is correct then," agreed Deaton.  "I've never seen a pack tie among non-wolves happen before, but that only means its possible."

Behind Derek, the load on Stiles' shoulders visibly lightened.  He slouched toward Derek, nudged his knee against the back of his arm where it blocked Deaton’s access across the table.  Derek nodded.  It was settled in his mind and he was calmer, feeling like he was back on track.

"So two rites. One _didn't_ work. What about the last one?"

“There is a belief among many cultures that the human soul doesn’t die,” Deaton said.  Derek listened as Stiles nodded.

“You said _reincarnation_ ,” cut in Stiles. He was worried about the rite that he said hurt the most, impatient and edgy.  “It leaves one body and goes to the next.  Got it.  What about it.”

Deaton pulled a face, unhappy with the oversimplification, but he let it slide. “Some of the ancient gods were believed to have achieved _that_ form of immortality.  They were mortal heroes first, and then the stories followed them, creating gods,” said Deaton.  “There is more than one account of a _Druid_ stepping in at a hero’s death.  They would sustain it in _this_ realm to allow the stories to spread by transforming their mortal essence into something else.  Such as a butterfly, or in our case, a _moth_.  Then, later, in one way or another, that transformation would give way to a rebirth.  The same soul, contained in a new immortal body.”

“I am not liking this answer,” Stiles said.  He shook his head. “No.”

Derek looked back at him.  “I’m beginning to think you just like that word.”

“Shutup,” snipped Stiles.  Derek nodded patiently.

“And that one, too.”

Stiles shoved at his shoulder in weak retaliation. Derek looked back to Deaton. He was still worried, but he was calm. “So he’s not dying. He’s, what, a lock-box for somebody else’s soul? That’s why his scent is... wrong.”

This was where Deaton’s confidence seemed to trade off with his curiosity.  “Well. According to the legends?  If he were female, in nine months he’d give birth to a child to carry the soul.”

Stiles squawked and physically startled.  “No!” he said again.  Derek shifted and leaned his weight on the leg that had just kicked him, held Stiles still so he couldn’t be kicked again.  He couldn’t help the grin as he looked over at him.  Sitting on the table as opposed to Derek’s lean against it, Stiles was a little taller and Derek had to look up to catch his gaze.

“Relax,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you’re still _not_ female.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes and scowled, mouth open to argue the logic, but he obviously couldn’t and was glad for that.  He spluttered and his fingers curled as though he wanted nothing more than to claw at Derek’s throat.  Stiles made a frustrated sound and stopped, apparently thinking about breathing for a moment instead to calm himself down.  It was clear that he was having trouble communicating under stress so Derek and Deaton waited him out.

“What I’m freakin’ worried about,” Stiles said, very careful to get each word out so it didn’t end up as another barked refusal, “Is that they went through all that trouble, knowing exactly who I was the whole time. They knew I don’t have the _parts_ to pop out a kid, _ever_ , let alone in nine-months.  So what the _hell_ did they do?”

“That, I don’t know,” said Deaton.

“That’s less than _helpful_ ,” said Stiles.

“It’s all more than we had ten minutes ago,” countered Derek. Deaton nodded.

“I’ll look into it, see what I can find out.  I can’t promise anything, other than I am going to look, try to figure something out that _is_ helpful.”

It was good enough for Derek.  He looked over at Stiles, his expression falling somewhat when he saw that Stiles still didn’t trust Deaton.  He couldn’t exactly blame him, and Deaton didn’t seem to take it to heart, but it was a distraction from the hope Derek was trying to hang on to.  He didn’t have a single damn answer for Stiles, the only thing he could actually do was to trust Deaton to sort it out.  Distracted, Derek looked to Deaton.

“You want to, maybe, get on that?” he asked.  It was as polite as possible, but a very clear hint.  Deaton excused himself with a nod and Stiles watched him leave the room.  When the door was closed, Derek tugged on Stiles to pull him toward the edge of the table.

“Hey. Stop,” he said.  Stiles dropped his glare from the door and looked at Derek.

“You stop being so goddamn okay with this,” he countered.

“What am I supposed to do?  Just accept this idea that you’re going to be dead before you’re better, scowl and throw things at people?” Derek tugged at Stiles’ leg again until he unfolded and let his legs hang over the side of the table, faced him fully.  Derek leaned his arms on Stiles’ thighs, angled to look him in the eye from a little closer, make sure the stubborn idiot understood him.  “No.”

“If I’m a dead man walking, I at least want answers first,” said Stiles.

“You’ve got three packs who want answers, so just trust that we’ll find something.”  Derek started to pull Stiles down from the table.  He clamped on to the edge and refused to be moved, which said plenty in response and only annoyed Derek.  “Okay, fine. You’ll be dead inside of, what?  Let’s say a week.  Screw your answers.  With five days to live, you can sure as hell come up with better ways to spend it than growling at your friends and running from your family.”

Stiles seemed to give the demand it’s due consideration.  He still pouted, but he relaxed a little in Derek’s hold, hung on to his arms instead of the table. Leaning forward just a little, he caught Derek’s hips between his knees and rested their foreheads together.  It was quiet and Derek almost relaxed.  And then Stiles opened his mouth again.

“If I’m dead in five days, I’m sure as hell not going out a virgin,” he said, belligerent as ever.  Derek cringed.

“My _mother_ can hear you,” he pointed out.

For about three seconds, he was just Stiles again.  A wide-eyed Stiles who had been deeply mortified because the socially-appropriate-filter had kicked in precisely when he didn’t want it to.  He stared at Derek, nose to nose, momentarily unable to breathe for what Derek deemed to be a normal, non-traumatic reason.  Derek smiled, big and smug and wolfy.  Stiles punched his arm and then had to shake out his hand, made a few faces until the stinging stopped.  Stiles let himself down from the table then, intentionally sliding down Derek’s body until the man’s smug expression took a slightly pained turn.  For the first time in days, Stiles grinned.  He patted Derek’s cheek as he wriggled out from between Derek and the table.

“I didn’t say you were gonna get it,” he taunted, just in case Talia really was listening.  Derek rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around Stiles from behind before he could sneak out into public spaces.

 

***

 

From the lobby, Talia and Scott heard everything Stiles had laid out for Deaton.  While Scott tried to cope with the second-hand experience, Talia quietly passed along Deaton's conclusions to Casey, sparing him, Chris and Melissa the apparently much more colorful descriptions of Stiles' two days with the Druids that Scott had heard.  The first thing Casey wanted to know was how to fix it, how to take off the edge for Stiles and ease the boy's pain if the wolves couldn’t help like they had so far.  Deaton was already on the problem, so Casey headed straight for Deaton's office to learn what he could from the man who would know.  Melissa bit her lip and held back in the lobby with Scott, worried by the way her boy hung his head.

"Derek," Talia greeted from the lobby chair beside her.  Melissa looked up as Derek turned their way and Stiles followed.  Melissa and Scott stood up to greet them and Stiles looked at them suspiciously for it.

"Where's my dad?" he asked.

"In with Deaton," said Chris. Melissa frowned at him for the accidental panic he had singlehandedly caused.

"They're working on a salve for the burns," Talia said quickly.

"Nuh uh, no way. No more Druid magic," said Stiles. "Somebody go get him back."

“I’ll go stay with them,” said Talia. Stiles seemed to accept that and Talia disappeared into the back.  Chris’ curiosity seemed to catch him and he followed after her.  With the gate open between the lobby and the back, Derek leaned on the counter and kept watch between the two rooms the group had separated into.  Melissa corralled Stiles into a chair and sicced Scott on the one next to him.  They penned him in and Melissa leaned in his space to quietly remind Stiles of the importance of manners, to which he added on his own, "Especially with Druids," and stopped vocalizing his complaints.  He fidgeted but he sat.  Melissa watched him close.  He didn’t mind her in his space, wasn’t hiding behind Scott.  And he was obviously worried about his dad, but something told her that he would go back to pretending to be invisible the moment Casey showed up.

“So, on the topic of manners,” she said carefully.  “When do you think you’ll be back on speaking terms with your dad? Ballpark range?”

Stiles didn’t look at her then, his attention dropping to Derek’s shoes across the room.  “I didn’t want him to worry about the Druids again.  It’s done.  He can’t fix it,” he said.

“No, but maybe he can help you, somehow,” said Melissa.  “Worry _and_ help.  It’s kind of his job.  He’s been doing it since approximately nine months before you were born.  And he’s gotten _really_ good at it lately.”

Stiles twitched, due to the topic of conversation or the cold in the room, Melissa wasn’t sure.

“Yeah, and if I’m dying, he doesn’t have to watch that happen again, either,” said Stiles.  He snapped a little, but he instantly cringed, muttered an apology. The frustration was with the circumstances, not Melissa. Melissa wanted to pull the kid into a hug, drag him to his father with Scott and squish the three of them in a big protective, immortalizing hug, but it wasn’t going to happen.

“But Derek can?” she asked.  “That’s why you didn’t come home?”

Stiles rolled his eyes at Melissa’s blatant prying.  She was trying to make a point, and he caught on, but at the same time, she wondered how much. The teen shrugged.

“If I can take it, he can take it, and, ya know, vice versa, I figure,” said Stiles.  “It’s not like I know what I’m doing either.  It’s just... what I’ve got.”

“As long as you’ve got it figured out then,” was all Melissa could bring herself to say.  She held her hand next to his, smiled at him when he let her take it.  “I don’t think any of us are going to let you go anywhere though.”

Stiles scoffed. “Too bad the darachs are scarier than the rest of you then, huh?”

Only Stiles would sit in a room with alphas and say that.  Amused, Melissa looked up to see that Scott and Derek had each found things elsewhere around the room to aim red-eyed glares at.

“I don’t know about that,” said Melissa.  “I know a few wolves who can get pretty damn scary protecting one of their own.”

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, sorry this one showed up late... got caught by tumblr. It eats lives. It also causes fandom feels and some intense fandom-debates with my sibling. So basically fandom eats lives. It's not tumblr's fault. I'll post this and then get back to the tumblr... 
> 
> PS: Beta says this is all I can post for now anyway. Sigh.


	9. Chapter 9

After Deaton’s, Stiles made an effort to be less surly and short with people, but he was no more communicative.  He still hid from his dad.  He had already had a month of his dad treating him like he would break and Stiles was beyond tired of it.  He wanted it to stop and that was going to be an almost impossible request after the past two days.  After Scott so helpfully told his dad that Stiles was _dying_? Another month of Casey Stilinski, actual crying mother hen.

Deaton had given them a few ideas for treating the abrasions from the purge and Stiles hid in the car with Derek and Scott to guard while the parents attacked the natural-foods store for the oils.  _Who knew_ modern-day Druids shopped at the local organic foods stores for their magic-potion ingredients.  They came in bottles, with printed labels, and didn’t require days and nights of forest-dwelling and tincture-sapping by the light of the first blood moon or something.  Anybody could do it.

That parking lot was suddenly the scariest place in the world to Stiles, and the store itself was somewhere around the 9th circle of hell.

Stiles way of coping, of dodging the sense of panic that he had grown too familiar with lately?  Taking over the third-row back bench of Chris' SUV and pinning Derek to it.   _He_ was something else to think about.  It was dark out, and raining, and it didn’t count as a PDA because the car wasn’t technically public; Scott didn’t count.  Public sharing wasn’t Derek’s thing, and Stiles didn’t know yet what _his_ thing was, he was just pretty sure it wasn’t _public_.  But making out to keep the hidden darachs shopping at the natural foods store from conjuring them all into a root cellar was a perfectly viable plan and Derek didn’t argue it.  And there was nothing quite as personally empowering as single-handedly drawing _that_ noise out of a _werewolf_.

Scott sat in the middle row and tried to ignore it but that was probably really hard for him. Stiles had absolutely zero pitty. Scott finally looked back at them, one hand raised as a blinder so he didn’t have to actually see anything in order to talk to them.

“Are you sure that can’t wait, like, twenty minutes?” he asked.

“Positive,” returned Stiles.  He was not the least bit distracted. Derek was and carefully shifted his hands to coordinates more north of the equator.  Stiles bit at his neck in retaliation and Derek swore in that panicked way he got when he was about to hit a boundary line.  Derek was very aware of his boundary lines because he was very aware that he was making out with the son of _the sheriff_ and it was generally a lot of fun for Stiles to push them.  In the back of the car with a babysitter though, not so much.  Stiles let out a frustrated complaint and leaned his arms on Derek’s chest to stick his head up over the shadow of the seat so he could see Scott.

“Seriously? How many times. How many times did I turn around and there’s you and Allison?” he asked.  It was a leading question, but not entirely unfair.  “You guys were like _bunnies_ , okay?  Just once - this one time - let me pretend to be normal too.  I will _pay_ you.”

“Yeah, but Allison is not _Derek_ ,” said Scott.  Stiles looked down at the Derek in question, confused.  Derek pulled a face, suddenly not embarrassed by the conversation happening above him as his curiosity took over.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked from the shadows. “I caught you and _Cora_ at it and didn’t say anything.”

“This is so not the same thing,” said Scott.  He beat his head lightly against the glass of the window beside him and rolled it down just enough to get some air without drenching the inside of the door.  Stiles didn’t give up, his mouth half twisted into a grin.  It was slowly morphing into solid revenge just by not letting Scott out of the awkward situation he had only brought on himself.

“So, what, is this a wolf thing?” he asked.  “Or just an alpha thing? Or what?”

“It’s a _there are some things you just never wanted to think about_ thing,” returned Scott. “This is seriously like watching our _parents_ or something.”

Stiles shot his friend a crazy grin and decided to never, ever let Scott live this one down.

“So you’re saying that _Derek_ as a _sexual_ beast is not a thing you ever wanted to think about?” he taunted.  Derek choked.  Stiles casually held a hand over his mouth, got bit for it, and retaliated in a way that was entirely unfair and he knew it.  Derek had to fight to keep quiet and pulled his arms up to sweep Stiles’ off his elbows against his chest.  “Okay, shut up, Stiles.”

 

***

 

The theory had been that if the four adults went into the store, the shopping would go faster.  They could split up, find everything on the list, and leave.  It was funny lately how often theories didn’t actually pan out for Casey.  Chris and Melissa were baffled by the ingredients list, and Stilinski stared at it like it was written in Latin.

“It is,” said Talia patiently.  “Writing it down for us? Technically, not done.  Taboo.  Alan was trying to lessen the risk it could have on the salve.”

The sheriff scoffed and shook his head.  Details and technicalities and he was reminded that he was dealing with a lawyer.

“Okay, well, _pig_ -latin I could have faked my way through, but I don’t know what any of that stuff says. Let alone what it looks like on a shelf,” said Casey with a wave toward the list in Talia’s hand. She smirked at him. Melissa held up her hands to withdraw from the running.

“I know anatomy, not plants,” she said.  “None of that makes sense.”

Chris took the list and tried again to look at it.

“His handwriting is crap,” Chris observed to himself.  “But I’ve never - why put this stuff together?”

“Healing arts are not the hunter’s forte,” Talia replied quietly.  “This isn’t familiar to you because it’s not meant to cause the boy _damage_.  No offense.”

Chris frowned and nodded.  “None taken.”

“So is this project a bust or can somebody read the list?” asked Casey.  Melissa pointed quickly to Talia, a vote that the werewolf among them familiar with such things handle it.  Casey silently seconded her.  Chris nodded.  Talia rolled her eyes.

“Right.  I’ll get the stuff on the list.  And you guys can just... Learn a few things.”

“I was actually thinking I’d go back to the car...” said Chris.  He motioned toward the exit and Talia shook her head at him quickly.  “No, I’m not going back to the car?”

“I don’t suggest it,” said Talia.

Chris frowned at her.  “Do I _want_ to know what’s going on in my car?”

“Better yet, do _I_ want to know what’s going on in his car?” added Casey.

“The car is fine,” Talia said to Chris. She looked to Casey, waved the list a little. “Stiles is not. He doesn’t like this stuff. Let the other two deal with it.”

Casey scowled and took the list. “For the record, you could have just _not_ said anything.  Now I gotta worry about the damn car...”

“It’s my damn car,” returned Chris.

Talia grinned and didn’t say anything.

 

***

 

Stiles happily kept his attention to the various parts of Derek that he figured he could get away with in a car his dad-the-sheriff was likely to return to at any time.  And out of deference to Scott’s ill-fated request, they tried to be quiet.  Of course it wasn’t long before karma showed up to bite Stiles on the ass.

“He has a thing for being tickled,” someone said, inside the car, from the middle seats.  Stiles was happily working on marking Derek’s jaw and only barely noticed.  It sunk in a moment later what had been said and he frowned.  He didn’t bother to look over the seat, not quite willing to give up his quest of the moment but too distracted to ignore it.

“How the hell would you know that?” he asked Scott.

“Know what?” asked Scott, tone wary of a prank.  Stiles licked at Derek’s mouth and then had to stop.  Full stop.  Scott was definitely not the other voice he had heard.

Stiles carefully pushed up off of Derek’s chest again to look over the seat.  He instantly regretted that and nearly fell off, even with Derek’s leg pinning his.  Stiles grabbed the back of his bench and levered himself back, eyes wide and mouth no longer working at all.  Sound came out, but he couldn’t get anything that wasn’t an oath to actually form words.  He had very effectively scared the mood out of Derek and the living daylights out of Scott and Stiles didn’t care.  As soon as Derek sat up, sliding his leg out of the way, Stiles scrambled to the door and let himself out.  Into the rain.  Where he could get fresh air and breathe and try to figure out what the hell he had just seen.  He stopped under a tree about five feet from the car because the trunk grew in the way of the direct line he had been stumbling on.

Derek followed him out, gruffly ordering Scott to stay inside, and he came up beside Stiles.  He caught his arm and carefully tugged him around to face him.  “What the hell was that?”

Stiles shook his head.  “I don’t even know.”

“Well, can you guess?  Help me out a little?”

“I saw someone in the car.  Next to Scott,” said Stiles.  Derek still blocked his view of the car and Stiles leaned against the tree, feeling like an idiot.

“There’s no one there,” Derek said, like Stiles didn’t already know he was going to say that.  Stiles stared up at the rain and started up a quiet mantra of “I’m going insane. I’m going insane...” Derek shook him by the shoulder.

“No.  Stop.  What did you see?”

Stiles gave up and leaned into Derek’s shoulder.  It was a way of bracing himself to look back into the car to the seat beside the bewildered Scott. The ghost still sat there, looking real and solid and not actually like a ghost at all.

“Blake. It’s Jennifer Blake,” he said.  The words caused him physical pain to have to say and he wasn’t sure if it helped or added to it when Derek turned to look back in the car again.  Stiles stared at her and Blake smiled, gave a wave. “I’m gonna be sick...”

Derek turned him back toward the tree, not wanting to be a part of that particular experience.  Stiles was leaning against the tree, his pitiful excuse of a lunch a thing of the past that had met the present on the ground behind it, when his dad showed up.  He and Derek were soaked from standing in the rain so long, the truck door was closed, and things were pretty miserable again.  Stiles’ dad seemed to realize there wasn’t much he could do to help... again.  Stilinski jerked a thumb back toward the store.

“I’ll... go buy you some water,” he said.  “Then we’ll get you home.”

Stiles just nodded.  He wasn’t sure how he was getting home when he was afraid to get back in the SUV, but he figured he’d have to man-up someday.

 

***

 

The rain hadn’t let up by the time the two-car caravan arrived back at the Stilinski house.  Melissa, however, stopped to wait for the boys to tumble out of the SUV; with all three of them accounted for, plus Talia and Chris, she ushered Stiles into the house.

“You,” she said, tugging on the soaked sleeve of the shivering teenager. “Laundry room. Now.”

Stiles nodded quickly and was immediately stripping out of the wet layers on his way.  Melissa gave Derek the side-eye before nodding him after Stiles.  She followed behind, shrugging out of her jacket.  She took Stiles’ hoodie - _jersey-knit was not a rain jacket... what was the boy thinking?_ \- and the borrowed shirt and started to dump them in the washer but Stiles stole the shirt back before it could be turned on.

“Don’t wash it. Just dryer...” he blurted.  Melissa pulled a face but obliged.  Once the dryer was going, she reached after towels in a cupboard and Derek reached over her head to get them before she could stress her still-healing shoulder.  Melissa smiled to herself; nobody could ever imply she didn’t know how to mother boys.  That was a slam dunk and she didn’t break a sweat.  Derek dumped a towel on Stiles’ head and the two took the hint while Melissa blocked the door back into the house.

“Now that you’re no longer in danger of breaking your jaw with all that chattering,” Melissa said, looking to Stiles.  “Let me check you over.”

The teenager hid first behind his towel and then angled behind Derek again.  Melissa raised an eyebrow at him.  “Really?” she asked.  It hit at his pride and he stopped hiding behind Derek.  That was better, but Mel wasn’t feeling that nice about it.  She stabbed people for a living, as he liked to remind her, so hiding behind a towel just wasn’t going to cut it for her.

“Two things you need to remember here,” Melissa said. She held up fingers to check them off.  “First, I’m a nurse. I have seen things that will in fact make _you_ faint. This, whatever it is, isn’t going to scare me off.  And second, me and his mom-” She pointed to Derek.  “Are now officially better friends than you and _Scott_.  Trust me.  So you can’t sic the guard dog on the _alpha_ and expect to live.  I’m sorry, you just can’t.”

Stiles gave it the due consideration before he shrugged and used the towel as a blanket instead of a shield.  “Fine.  But it’s your own fault if it’s contagious or something,” he warned, a tiny bit of his usual attitude showing through.  Melissa rolled her eyes.  If that was the best he had, Stiles was still a long way from being back on his game.

“Please.  If this was contagious, you and I both know that he wouldn’t be sporting a fancy new hickey on his neck,” she said.  Derek instantly bunched the towel up off his shoulders and around his neck closer to try to hide it.  Stiles almost cracked a grin but he still looked a little afraid of letting himself do it.  Melissa wagged her fingers at him and reached for his arm.  Stiles grumbled, settled back against the warm dryer and let her catch his hand to start investigating the burn.  Melissa frowned at the strange markings without poking at him too much.  He had full range of motion, and aside from causing a cranky-version of the Stiles they all knew and loved, the marks didn’t seem to cause as much pain as they looked like they should.

“If this were any real burn, I’d say give it three weeks and make sure to let it all breathe,” said Melissa thoughtfully.  She paused and glanced up at Stiles apologetically. “Well, I meant not-caused-by-magic. It looks plenty _real_.”

“Hurts real enough,” said Stiles. He didn’t try to dodge her though, just made the observation.  Melissa nodded.  She reached up to hold his head still as she checked the stripe that ran from one side of his brow down across his nose to the opposite jaw and seemed satisfied that would heal. When she asked about the bloody stripes she had seen across the back of his shirt, Stiles cringed, apparently very apologetic for ruining a borrowed shirt that Derek didn’t seem overly concerned about.  Melissa reached up and set a hand to his forehead, ruffling the damp hair out of the teenager’s face.

“If there’s things we can help with, let’s get it done,” she said.  “We can’t make this magic Druid stuff go away maybe, but we can fix cuts, right?”

“We cleaned him up when he got to my place,” said Derek quietly. “We just didn’t have any first aid available.”

Melissa cut him a sidelong glance. “We need to fix that oversight,” she said. “One too many humans in your pack not to have one.”

“We have three,” said Stiles, one eyebrow raised at Melissa.  She nodded.

“One of the three is more _trouble-prone_ lately than the _others_ ,” she replied.  She turned to another cupboard by the back door and pointed. “Somebody fetch the kit from up there for me.  We’ll take care of whatever bled out on Derek’s shirt.  Which, that’s not going to come out now, by the way, sorry.”

Stiles glared at the ceiling.  Derek appointed himself Reacher-for-Tall-Things and went after the First Aid kit Melissa had sicced him on. For her part, Melissa leaned a hip against the counter beside the dryer and waited.  A moment later, Derek held the first aid kit in her line of sight and Melissa smiled at him.

“You,” she said, which made Derek look wisely worried, “Get to do the honors. Since he’s being so clingy lately.”

“I’m not clingy,” muttered Stiles.

Derek raised an eyebrow.

Stiles shook his head. “Let’s go with magnetic. Better word.”

Still leaned against the countertop with her arms crossed, Melissa smirked at him sympathetically. “Stiles, honey? From what I have seen so far, you are the epitome of a _spider web_ , and I wasn’t locked in the van with you.” Scott had looked traumatized when he climbed out of the SUV.

The teenager shrugged, his ears pink over the gray towel on his shoulders.  “I approve of Peter Parker analogies.  We’ll go with that.”

Melissa crooked her finger and waved for Stiles’ attention back.  “You get to let him patch up whatever you did to your back,” she said.  Stiles pulled a face.

“I didn’t.  The tree did.  And even I don’t wanna know what it did to it,” he said.  Beside him, Derek winced and nodded. Melissa almost lost all resolve to respect Stiles’ adamant anti-parental-assistance stance then.  She clamped her hand on to the edge of the counter and made herself _stay_.  The worst she could do was level a stern look at Derek.

“Right,” the man reported dutifully.  He tugged at Stiles’ elbow in a hint and the walking-injury of a teenager reluctantly shifted to let him take care of it.  To Melissa’s surprise, he didn’t just turn to face her, he turned to let her see the damage for herself.  The three stripes weren’t as bad as she feared, but they weren’t pretty.  Something had sliced down the length of his back, the tree roots apparently, and then burned them over.  Melissa nodded to Derek to carry on.  She coached him through basic care steps and the differences between a band-aid and a butterfly bandage, tried not to laugh at Derek’s frustration with the mundane necessities of life for non-wolves who couldn’t just _heal_.  He was the one least prepared to deal with humans in his pack, yet Derek had pulled in three of them.  Derek's frustration was funny, Stiles' beat-up state was anything but.  Melissa wasn’t letting that slide after this.

Derek’s expression was stonier than usual, determined on top of that, and he caught her looking at him.  There was a brief nod of acknowledgement as he finished up.  The dryer beeped at them then at the same time.  As Stiles dove for the henley and his hoodie, Melissa gave Derek a sympathetic smile.

“Good job?” she said awkwardly.  Derek looked at her as he caught the shirt Stiles threw at him.

“But?” he replied.  Melissa had tried so hard to be convincing, too.  She sighed.

“There’s a class at the hospital I think I’m going to sign you up for,” she told him gently, no less amused.  “CPR and First Aid. For non-wolves. I’ll even pay for it.”

They looked at Stiles in his warm layers and hood. He blinked at them. “What? I’m not gonna argue that. I’ve seen this guy take a blowtorch to... people.”

Derek looked about like he was going to knock Stiles’ head off his shoulders and Melissa got the distinct impression she was missing something.

“What? Blowtorch?”

“Nothing!” Stiles smiled at her, completely false, and then let himself quickly out of the laundry room with Derek chasing after him.  Melissa shook her head and tossed their abandoned towels into the washer.

 

***


	10. Chapter 10

Even though the real-live-solid-ghost that nobody but Stiles could see had long since disappeared, Stiles didn't trust it would stay gone. Patched up and safe at home, he still inserted himself in Derek's space bubble and refused to leave it.  It was not up for debate.  They found food, Stiles found himself some alcohol to sneak when his dad wasn’t looking, and Stiles trailed Derek everywhere.

His brain was officially a terrifying, traitorous place where dead people now lived.  The 9th circle of hell wasn't _actually_ the Druid-infested organic foods market, it was Stiles' brain.  He knew of only one way to reliably shut off his brain, and that required Derek.  He just kind of assumed Derek would oblige on that, as long as he could keep the Crazy to himself.

The next time Jennifer showed up, Stiles was in the kitchen of his own house, watching Talia and his dad try to figure out the instructions Deaton had given them.  He heard the woman's heeled boots clack across the tile and not-so-subtly announced his distress by resting his back to Derek's chest and leaning them back into a countertop enough that Derek jumped up to sit.  Standing tucked between the man's legs, Stiles hooked his fingers into Derek’s pockets and felt safer; the Druid-image wasn't going to zap him away if he was _attached_ to somebody.  He then tried to pretend he didn't see her.

It was a little odd being glued to Derek in full view of other people after weeks of keeping non-pack-closeness to either Stiles’ bedroom or Derek’s loft. It was a sacrifice Stiles was willing to make.  There was no way for Derek to make their closeness less offensive to the sheriff so he didn't bother to try, either. He flattened his palms over Stiles' pounding chest and quietly told him to calm down.

"Nope, not gonna happen yet," Stiles replied.

"Stiles, this is getting stupid, honestly," said Jennifer. "I know you didn't exactly like me, but we're stuck here. Together. Don't you think you could be a little less rude?"

Stiles set his jaw and refused to acknowledge her.  Jennifer crossed her arms and stood next to them.

"Fine," she said. Stiles let out a low, unconscious whine that got him hugged a little harder.  Talia stopped to look back at him, make sure he was alright. Derek nodded at her.

"I got him," he said quietly. She reluctantly turned back.  Jennifer almost had Stiles jumping into Derek's lap when she leaned in next to him.

"A piece of advice: it defeats the purpose of not accepting an already mixed balm if you still trust somebody else to make it."

"No, I didn't want _Deaton_ to.  Difference," snapped Stiles.  He realized he said it out loud and tried to cover it with a cough.  Talking to the voices in his head: not a good way to avoid the looney bin.  His dad turned around, to ask probably _why_ , and ended up not.  Stilinski was by no means used to his underaged son being groped in the kitchen and it silenced him very effectively.  He turned back around to the other counter.  Talia busied him with something and then half-turned so she could keep an eye on both the father and son. Jennifer thought this was funny and laughed.

"Oh, I see.  So you'll trust someone who won't even talk to you, someone with no skill at all, no spark.  But the Druid who _knows_ what he's doing? Nope, no."

Stiles tramped down on a frustrated yell.  He half-dragged Derek off the counter until the man got the hint and stood behind him.  Then, on the silent count of three, Stiles let go and bolted from the room.

"What the hell..." blurted Stilinski, startled.

"He's scared. I got it," Derek said again, running after Stiles.

"We're _all_ scared," the sheriff called after him. "Lets _try_ not to cause heart-attacks?"

 

***

 

Stiles took the stairs three at a time. Derek was a few feet behind him when the kid skittered into his bedroom.  He waved Derek into the room and then slammed the door closed after him with enough force to shake the wall.

"Heart-attacks!" the sheriff repeated from the kitchen.

"Having one!" rasped Stiles.  He leaned against the door and looked like he might actually mean it.

"Stiles?" Derek was scared to say anything at all. He had no idea what had set Stiles off, he still couldn't smell him at all to know if he was just scared or sick, too. He felt helpless and useless.

Then Stiles was on him like fly paper and shoving him toward the bed. Derek caught his own scent off the borrowed shirt as Stiles bunched it up and threw it on the floor, but still no _Stiles_ to it.

"What are you-"

"Panicking," said Stiles quickly. "We can fix that."

Derek silently disagreed but Stiles seemed fairly confident that he knew what he was doing.  He actually jumped and caught Derek's hips - when the hell had he _practiced_ that? - and Derek had to catch him while also remembering to breathe under an open-mouthed, active kiss.  Stiles had lost weight in the four days since they had last gone at each other in what was now Derek’s bedroom at the loft; Derek made the mental note to worry about that _later_.

"Bed," Stiles said against his mouth.

"Nuh uh," said Derek.  If Stiles was really just panicking under all this effort, Derek would give him something new to think about.  Maybe it would work before the sheriff came in and shot him.  Stiles had started unbuttoning Derek's shirt - _multitasking_ : an often overlooked perk to ADHD - and had it shoved down Derek's shoulders by the time Derek had him pinned to the wall by the open window.

"Forgot to tell you," Derek said between kisses, also aptly called seriously-aggressive-Stiles _maulings_ at this point. "Can't smell you. But you still taste like you."

"Ha! Win!" The news made Stiles feel better. Or it was sinking down on to Derek's thigh that did it, Derek wasn't sure.  He let go long enough to get out of the pullover Stiles was seconds from ripping off his elbows then caught him at the arm to press him to the wall and make Stiles be still. Derek really loved how he could get Stiles to just stop, not move, not talk, not think, just barely breathe, and all he had to do was hold himself just out of easy reach by anything less than an inch.  Just breathing the same air, watching his eyes go dark, it had a hypnotic effect on Stiles. Derek felt him catch his breath and sink a little heavier in his hold.  They stayed that way until Stiles calmed down, sleepily.

"Better?" Derek asked.  Stiles nodded. Derek touched their foreheads together, still _just_ out of reach and Stiles closed his eyes. That worked.

"Get your shirt on," said Derek, careful not to spook him with the bad news. "Your dad's coming up."

A quiet whine escaped but Stiles took back some of his own weight and Derek let him loose.  The teen tossed various piles of clothes toward a hamper until he found the borrowed shirt and, once again dressed, sunk in his desk chair.  Derek found his shirt and was just buttoning it when the door opened.

"This door," said Stiles’ father, "It stays open."

He would look at Stiles but intentionally ignored Derek.  Apparently the top half of Derek’s henley unbuttoned was as damning as not wearing one at all.

"Ohmygod. Just stop," complained Stiles.

The sheriff flicked the light-switch and Derek's over-sensitized system made him blink like they'd turned on a windstorm.

"Stiles," said Talia.  Derek stood a little straighter, less relaxed in case anyone felt like glaring at him just then.  He knew the tone well enough.  Stiles didn't.

"I'm not twelve," said Stiles.

"Obviously. If you were, Derek wouldn't be in here," said Talia. "So you can behave yourself or take it to the den."

Stiles perked up. "Derek's?"

"Living room, idiot," said Derek. Stiles huffed and at least made an effort not to pout.

"Let me see." Talia wheeled the desk chair over a couple of feet and perched herself on the edge of the bed in front of Stiles.  He didn't argue at her fussing, just shoved up a sleeve and tried not to fidget.

Talia checked first to be sure the mix didn't cause any reactions to Stiles' skin in the one _tiny_ spot that didn’t have a handprint on it.  Once that went over safely, she smoothed it carefully over the palm-shaped abrasions on his arm.  She muttered something under her breath that Derek remembered from when he was younger, a kind of protection prayer Talia used rather universally.  It made Derek feel better, but Stiles tensed up. His mom noticed.

"This is not supposed to hurt at all," Talia said to Stiles.  Another tone that Derek knew not to argue with, even as an adult. "Tell me if it does."

"S'fine.  Just don't _chant_ at me," muttered Stiles. Talia glanced up at him, measuring his mood a little better.  Then she nodded.  Derek coughed, more or less asking permission to talk in the presence of a sheriff who stood with his hand at the edge of a gun belt he _wasn't actually wearing_. Stilinski looked up at him sharply.  Derek motioned toward Stiles, between them in the desk chair.

"He can see Blake," Derek said.  Stiles jumped in his seat like Talia had applied the burn instead of the medicine and shot the chair back away from her.

"No I can't," he said quickly.

"Yeah, not right _now_.  You're fine now," Derek challenged. He looked back to Stilinski and Talia. "But that's what keeps setting him off. That's what they did."

"Twice. _Twice_ is coincidence," insisted Stiles.

"What does she want?" asked Stilinski. Stiles' dropped his jaw.

"I don't know.  I don't want to _talk to her_ to find out," he said.

"You should," said his dad.  As if Stilinski had just granted permission for the specter to show up, Derek heard Stiles' heart rate and breathing spike.

"I'm not going to talk to a ghost," said Stiles.  He pointed to the bowl of medicine beside Talia.  "I can do that.  You guys can go."

"Stiles! Let us help!" Derek was more than surprised by the dismissal. Stiles glared over at him, since it was Derek's fault for turning traitor.

"It's in _my_ head!  Nobody can see her!" said Stiles. "You literally _can't_ help!" He hesitated before amending, "Well, _you_ can. They can't."

" _That_ is not _helping_ ," countered Derek.

“It's all I've got, okay?" Stiles was louder than he probably intended, but it still would have hit Derek hard if he had whispered it. "I don’t have the pack to help, but I have you.”

"We’re not done yet, Pup," said Talia calmly. She stood and handed the bowl to Stiles. "We'll try this, and anything else, one at a time until we get it."

"That's... that's the problem. I don't _feel_ like I have time," said Stiles. He gave a half-hearted flail and shook his head. “I can’t tell where anybody is, it’s like I’m out of it, out of everything, and now _her_... I swear I’m not crazy...”

Talia crouched at his knee and caught his hand.  Derek saw it get through to Stiles despite the kid's best efforts at staying walled off.  She smiled.  "I know how it feels.  And when we don't have time is when we make sure we _make_ the time.  There's nothing to lose by doing so."

Stiles gave a small nod and seemed to understand.

"Good. Just don't waste it." Talia stood then, twisting Stiles' chair slightly toward the door as she moved.  She crossed the floor to Stilinski and tugged at his hand briefly.

"Let him figure it out," she said. The sheriff nodded. He watched Stiles for a moment longer, concerned and still scared. Then he turned to follow her out.

"Dad! Wait!" Stiles still moved like he was hurt but he was out of the chair and across the room to hug his dad. He hadn't let his dad near him since he had come back so the sheriff hadn’t been expecting a tackle. The sheriff held on fast and just as crushing as Stiles gave him. They didn't move for almost a minute.

Stilinski broke first, too aware of Stiles' shivering. He caught Stiles’ head between both hands and made him meet his gaze. "You _won't_ go anywhere," he said. "None of us will let you go. Most of all me. You understand? Just get better."

Stiles nodded and got a kiss on the forehead. And then their parents left. It was the sheriff who shut the door this time, which surprised Derek. But he noticed the lights were left on. He watched Stiles slump back into the room, back to the desk. He dipped his fingers in the medicine he'd been left, making a face at it.

"Just shut up, okay? No talking," he said quietly. It seemed off to Derek but he nodded. Stiles looked up at him quickly. "No, not you. I meant her."

Derek looked around the room, even tried to use his alpha sight, but he still didn't see anything else in the room with them. It was a little unnerving, because he could still hear and see Stiles, he could tell by the signs of physical distress that Stiles saw something real to him. And all Derek could do about it was nod his head and let Stiles talk to a ghost. It was... Wrong.

Derek didn't let it knock him off track and he moved to offer what help he could. He pointed Stiles toward the end of the bed.

"Sit. Let me do this," he said. Stiles had to think about it. Then he nodded and shrugged back out of the henley to do as he had been asked. Derek sat in the chair in front of him and started work on applying the homemade medicine to his arms.

"Traitor," muttered Stiles. “I’m seeing a total trend here.”

"You're the only one of the two of us who can see and hear my homicidal ex girlfriends," returned Derek.

"One of them. Just one," said Stiles, a little panicked. Derek accepted that, just as relieved as Stiles. "And... She says she's not homicidal."

Derek scoffed. "I say she lies."

It was eerie when Stiles looked over his shoulder, his animated features suddenly angry and reactive to something. He didn't pull his arm from Derek's hands though.

"What- would you just- _Space bubble_ , okay? Respect it!" Stiles leaned to the side, physically avoiding something. Derek frowned.  On the off chance it would work, he let go of Stiles' arm just enough to take a swipe at whatever he had seen.  Stiles hesitantly sat up again.  Derek watched him close.

"Did that work?" he asked.

"No. But she moved," he said.  He looked back over his shoulder and said louder, "and I'm _ignoring her_ now."

 

***


	11. Chapter 11

An impromptu multi-pack meeting was called that night at the Stilinski house. It was against Stiles’ wishes, but he wasn’t an alpha.  Thanks to the work of the Druids, he wasn’t _technically_ pack anymore, either, and that was the problem.  With Melissa, Derek and Scott all three under the same roof, dealing with the same things, they together outvoted Stiles.  It was harsh and Scott knew he was going to stress out about it but they couldn’t just leave everybody in the dark.  It was too risky.

There was a late night run for pizza.  Stiles claimed one pie for himself and glared at anyone who went near the box, which was all that amounted of his retaliation for their “rubbing his nose in the last two days of hell.”  But it was pizza, and he got over it.  Scott crashed on to the couch next to him, even though there wasn’t really enough room for him between Stiles and his dad.  It was a lot safer to sit between Stilinski and his kid than it was to try getting between Derek and Stiles lately, and Derek had the other end of the couch and wasn’t moving.

Chris picked up Allison and Isaac from Scott’s house, and Lydia from hers.  The twins and Danny showed up in his car.  With the sheriff’s car and Melissa’s in the driveway, the front curb was another parking lot and Chris didn’t say _anything_ about it.  There was something bugging him that went further than Stiles’ latest round of trouble but Scott wasn’t even going to ask about it, he just stayed out of the man’s path.  Once Cora and Peter showed up, Melissa corralled everyone in the den and killed the TV.  Stiles made a face and started to protest but he lost that battle before he really even started it and settled back to hide behind his food.  As people showed up in the room with them, he tried more and more to sink into the crevices of the couch, the pizza colder and colder as it went from food to an outright shield.

“Stiles! Man... are you okay?”  The question from Danny was obviously not what the guy had meant to say but he was very surprised by the visible damage on Stiles’ face.  He still held out a hand and Stiles nodded at him, reached up to bump fists.

“Yeah,” said Stiles.  “I’m alive anyway.  Sucky two days, man. Don’t recommend it.”

One normal social-interaction post-trauma down.  Scott ruffled his friend’s hair proudly, earning a sideways glare.  The twins trailed by to greet him too. Ethan clapped a hand to Stiles’ but both of the werewolves awkward around injured non-wolves, as usual.  Lydia, however, wasn’t such an easy ‘hello’ as the others.  She stood in front of the couch, hands on her hips, and her lips in a flat disapproving line.

“Uh... hi?” said Stiles, uncertain.

“Hi?  Two days of worrying and this is what- no. You _don’t_ do that to people, Stiles.” Lydia’s glare turned briefly to Scott, then away because of the surprised Stilinski blinking at her from his other side.  She looked to Derek then.  “You need to move.”

Scott gave himself a cramp trying not to laugh while scrunched between the two Stilinskis. Derek stared up at Lydia like the girl had lost her mind. Stiles very carefully set his pizza down on the arm of the couch on the other side of Derek as he got the hint.

“Okay...” he said slowly. He got cautiously to his feet. Stiles pasted on a fake smile for the demanding audience. “Hi Lydia! How are you?”

That got him hugged.  Really hard.  Stiles squawked like he was going to choke and Scott had to try not to laugh again.  Then Lydia let Stiles go and punched him in the arm.  Repeatedly.

“If you ever make me worry for two whole freaking days about finding your dead freaking body somewhere between here and another freaking state, Ever. Again. I am kicking your ass,” said Lydia. The woman was dead serious and Scott stopped laughing, too surprised.

“Uh. Yes ma’am,” said Stiles.  Lydia seemed to accept it and turned her attention back to Derek.  She pointed him to the spot Stiles had just vacated.

“Move.” Derek raised an eyebrow at her.  Lydia rolled her eyes.  “Fine.  Move, _please_.”

Scott grabbed Derek by the arm before the banshee somehow sprouted claws and tugged him toward Stiles’ former spot.  Lydia took the seat Derek had vacated, and then tugged Stiles down onto Derek.

“Are you kidding me?!” Stiles almost jumped back to his feet but Derek caught his arm, grinned at him, and he stayed put.  Scott tugged him back by the hood and Stiles ended up sitting across Derek’s lap, his shoulder wedged in the tiny - _miniscule_ \- spot still available between Scott and Derek, with Lydia leaning on his legs in her own lap to keep him pinned where she had put him.

“No, I really think I could hate you all right now,” muttered Stiles. Scott snickered and patted Stiles’ hair again. Stiles couldn’t even glare at him because his dad did the same thing five seconds later.

Allison and Isaac contented themselves with a wave from across the room after the scene, and Stiles quietly promised to love them forever for it, and then Scott’s mom trailed back in the room with Talia, Cora, Peter and Chris.  Cora sat back against Scott’s legs while the others found places to stand.  The Stilinski living room was suddenly tiny and the crowded couch was no big deal anymore.  Melissa started things off with a lecture about how everyone (except Stiles) had to go to school the next day now that they didn’t need search teams anymore.  Stiles muttered a quiet apology and Lydia glared at him for it.

“I know, I know, don’t go missing anymore and you won’t have to miss any more school, I got it already,” Stiles said to the ceiling.  He crossed his ankles to buck Lydia’s elbows digging into them, tucked a hand around Derek’s arm, and dropped his head onto the couch.  Stiles apparently intended to ignore the rest of the meeting.

“Where were you, anyway?” asked Aiden.  “And what’s the stuff on your face?”

“Druids. Evil. _Moving on_ ,” returned Stiles without looking up.

“Yeah, that’s the next on my list,” said Melissa. “We’re having a bit of a - let’s call it a Druid problem-”  Without moving from his slouch against the couch, Stiles held up a hand to give the woman a sarcastic thumbs-up for the creative label. Melissa hid a grin and moved on. “And Stiles is in the middle of it. So until it’s figured out, he’s on lockdown.”

“Wait, what?” asked Stiles. He sat up, suddenly invested in the meeting again.

“Meaning you go _nowhere_ without one of us with you,” said Stilinski.

“At least until we figure out why we can’t track you,” added Talia.  Stiles collapsed back against the sofa again to slowly die of babysitter-inflicted embarrassment instead of Druid-poisoning.

Melissa nodded.  “Once you’re feeling better, you can go back to school, but even there, buddy-system.”

“Can we just not, with this? Like, ever again?” Stiles said into the back of the couch.  Melissa crossed her arms, one eyebrow lifting. Scott sat a little straighter in his squish between Stilinskis and tapped on Stiles’ back to let him know he was missing a Mom-face.  Stiles chickened out and wouldn’t even look.

“ _Fine_.  Babysitter.  Got it,” he said.  Melissa was about to start into something else but Stiles held up a hand to interrupt again.  “And just so it’s out there and _everybody_ knows... if you see me talking to somebody and there’s nobody there... it’s a Druid. I’m not _actually_ crazy.  So you guys can just cut me some freaking slack for awhile.  _Please_.”

Melissa looked to the quietly outraged Lydia and shook her head. “When we know more, we’ll tell you. For now, that... basically summed it up.”

Lydia turned her glare to Peter then, as if it were his fault, and the man slunk behind Talia because for once it wasn’t his fault and there was nothing for him to own up to.  Melissa looked to Talia then, tagging her for the announcements.  Scott raised an eyebrow, confused at the pass off.

“The only other thing we need to make everyone aware of,” said Talia.  She put extra emphasis on the ‘everyone’ and Scott shrunk back a little behind Stiles when she glared at him.  What had he done?  “Is that Gerard Argent is alive and kicking.”

Oh.  That was why the glare.  “Shit.”

At his feet, Cora startled and pushed away from him. Derek went tense and Stiles stopped hiding his face in the couch.  Peter, strangely, didn’t seem that surprised.

“I’m handling it, with Chris and Allison,” said Talia.  She looked pointedly to her children.  “And you two will not.”

“But-” Cora was, not surprisingly, the first to argue.  She didn’t get far.  Melissa’s eyes flashed red and effectively silenced her.  Scott’s jaw hung slack as he stared.  When- or better yet, how - had his mom picked up that trick?

“It’s between your mom and the Argents, Cora,” said Melissa quietly.  She looked up to make sure Derek and even Scott and Stiles were listening. “Right now, it’s not a _problem_ and we want to keep it that way. But for everyone’s safety, Chris and Allison’s included, we thought everyone should know.”

Derek nodded and reluctantly accepted it but Cora was still tense.  She stood up and left the room without a word.  Scott looked after her but Talia glared at him again and he found the floor at his mom’s shoes suddenly fascinating.  Chris and Allison both looked guilty, too.  Talia excused herself to go after Cora. Everyone else mostly stared at Melissa and the wolfy red eyes.

“Uh... Mel?” Stilinski caught her attention and winced a little. He motioned toward his own eyes as a hint. Melissa looked momentarily flustered and then seemed to shake herself out of it. When she looked up again, she was normal.

“I just... I’m never gonna get used to that,” said Stilinski, shaking his head. Melissa smirked. Stiles faceplanted into the couch again. The meeting sort of dissolved after that, aside from the questions asking if somebody bit Melissa, which she passed off to Peter because she had no explanations for the change either.  The jerk lied with a big smile, not forgetting that a beta bite _doesn’t count_ , and Derek threw the crumpled up pizza plate at him.  That pretty much set the tone for the evening and Danny and Ethan started a food fight a half hour later in the kitchen because Isaac asked Allison and Lydia to make cookies.

 

***

 

"Okay.  No!  Seriously not okay." Stiles stared in the mirror at the not-a-ghost.  He had an almost good night.  Things had been quiet since everyone left.  The last thing he wanted was a dead-Druid to ruin everything all over again.  Stiles was less afraid and more angry.  "I'm in the freaking bathroom!"

"So? You're alone. No one around to think you're crazy," said Jennifer.  She jumped up onto the counter and made herself comfortable to wait.  Stiles' bladder, predictably, stopped cooperating and he quickly moved to wash his hands and leave.  Jennifer watched him, one eyebrow lifted as she judged his panic.  She dropped down to block his path to the door.

"Stop," she said. Stiles tried to shove past her and pulled back, half-terrified again when he didn't walk through her but instead bumped into her. He got over it when he realized that meant he could punch her.

"Let me out," he said. Jennifer shook her head and shoved him back from the door.  She pointed to the edge of the bathtub.

"Sit. You don't get to dodge me anymore," she said.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" snapped Stiles.  Jennifer shoved him again and he tripped on the bathtub edge, sitting down just to avoid falling in it.

"Because you're it," said the woman.  She didn't seem happy about it.  "You're my tie to Derek, and he's my tie here.  This realm."

Stiles balked. "Why _me_?"

Jennifer gave him a flat look and crossed her arms.  "He marked _you_.  Not me.  He turned on me because of _your_ father.  Because of _you_."

Stiles kept his mouth shut, not pointing out that Derek turned on her because she wanted a killer, not a predator.  Jennifer didn't notice his scowl and carried on.

"And, because I’m _stupid._   When the other one stepped in to kill me, I pulled free of my dying body to protect _Derek_ -"

"Wai- Whut? You did what?" Stiles blinked, confused.

Jennifer paused to raise an eyebrow. "His uncle killed me. The power-hungry monster-wolf.  You know he's crazy, right?"

"Yes," said Stiles.  He still bristled a little, briefly distracted by a familial defensiveness.  Only _pack_ got to diss on Peter.

"So I gave my power to the Nemeton before he could _take_ it," said Jennifer.  "And the Nemeton gave me a moth."

"I'm real happy for the two of you," said Stiles. He was less than happy and less than patient. "But why are you freaking in _my_ head?!"

Jennifer knelt in front of him, looking him in the eye.  She was very real, very feminine, and looked just like she did as his substitute English teacher. Not very monster-like.  Stiles could even smell her perfume.  He gave her the side eye, his back straight and rigid to keep away from her.

"I swear to god if you're about to Druid-kiss me again I'm punching you in the face. I don't care if you're a woman," he said. And that was a solid promise.

"I am here because I was not given this second chance to waste it on a life as a _moth_ ," said Jennifer.  She smiled and Stiles paled.

"Shit," he said. He suddenly realized a very important detail in the state of his sanity. "I have a _crazy_ homicidal Druid with an _existential crisis_ happening in my head. This is great..."

Jennifer physically caught his hand and Stiles jumped.  "This opportunity is rare, Stiles.  It's a gift."

Stiles laughed nervously. "I'm thinkin' it's not, actually..."

"A chance at real power? Immortality?" asked Jennifer.

"I don't want to be some kind of _god_ ," said Stiles. "I'm just fine collecting wolves.  That's as close to _power_ as I ever wanna get."

"Then be done," said Jennifer. She shrugged, still held on to him. "Stop fighting me and let me have my power back."

Stiles _felt_ his eyes flash briefly blue that time.  "I shouldn't have it in the first place!"

"I couldn't get to Derek because of _you_ ," said Jennifer.  She snarled back at him.  "I died trying to protect him, I am responsible to him.  He is why I am able to come back at all.  And _you're_ the _only_ way I could get this far."

"Invitations were _not_ sent out to the party in my head," said Stiles.  Jennifer nodded.

"And here I am anyway. You can either welcome me in, or _you_ can leave," she told him. "That's how this works."

Stiles shoved Jennifer back and she blinked out.  It derailed his anger for a moment until she appeared again standing near the door.  Stiles stood to move and meet her.

"You can't have _him_ and you can't have _me_ ," he growled at her.  She stared at him, somewhere between fascinated and afraid.  Stiles got in her space enough to reach around her and pull open the door.  "So _you_ just leave.  Or at least shut the hell up."

He let himself out of the room, using the door to physically shove her away from it, and then closed her inside.  She was in his head, it wasn't like he could actually lock her in the bathroom.  But it was enough for now.  He leaned back on the door, took a few panicked breaths and looked around the hall.  No one was there.  No one had heard.  The werewolves in the house could have, but if they had been paying attention, someone would have come poking around.  No one had heard him arguing with himself in the bathroom in the middle of the night about who got to keep his _body_ and Derek Hale.  Points scored for sanity yet again.  Stiles snuck back to his room before somebody woke up.

 

***

"Remind me to kill Peter next time he shows his rat-face," said Stiles.  The fully-dressed Derek was awake when Stiles got back to his room, a lamp on, a book in his hand.  He had waited up and raided Stiles closet for one of Stiles' over shirts that mostly fit him and probably smelled like Stiles was _supposed_ to.  And he was reading.  And Stiles wanted to jump him so badly.  He couldn't, with Talia _and_ Scott over specifically to chaperone-with-the-door-closed.  Stiles stopped and stared.

"Holygod. I really wish your mom couldn't hear so good," he announced quietly. Derek frowned at him and put the book down.

“Next time maybe _think_ about your words before you _say_ them,” said Derek, apparently in full agreement otherwise based on the face he was making. "Why are you killing my uncle again?"

Stiles sighed and sat down on the side of the bed to make the report.  "He killed Jennifer to try to get her power.  She _gave_ it to the Nemeton first. The _Nemeton_ made her an immortal little moth.  Her buddies put that all inside _me_ and now _she_ wants _out_."

Derek took it surprisingly well, didn't look at Stiles and ask if he needed stronger medication, didn't slowly stand up and leave the room with the crazy person in it.  He was a werewolf so it fit in with the rest of life as he knew it just fine. He stared at Stiles, processed the news.

"She can't have you," he said simply. It was a matter of _fact_ , Derek wasn't accepting anything else.  Stiles nodded, relieved.

"That's what I told her."

"Then we're good."

Stiles crawled into the bed and slumped against Derek's side. "Not exactly."

Derek gave him the side-eye from where he slouched on pillows against the wall.  Stiles looked up at him, pouted a little.

" _Good_ would be _un_ chaperoned," he muttered at Derek's ribs.  Derek rolled his eyes at the reminder, quietly growled at him.

"Would you _stop_?"

 

***


	12. Chapter 12

It took a few days before Talia and Chris went back to try Gerard again. They had been a little busy trying to track down reasons why Stiles was seeing dead darachs plain as day. Too much time in between thinking how to protect her pack meant Talia had very little creative ideas to torment the elder Argent with while she had the chance. It wasn't in her nature and she wasn't very good at it; playing with their prey was a hunter trait. But maybe, now that Stiles was safe and Gerard no longer had the advantage, they could get more information from him.

Not surprisingly, the mission was a bust. Gerard had taken the time to shore up his mental resources. He monopolized the conversation, talking eloquent circles around his frustrated son, a new round of half-truth insulting stories riling Talia more than she would allow herself to show.

"It won't work, Gerard," said Talia, finally. "You won't provoke me here."

"Really?" asked the old man. "You think I have so little to do with my days that I would spend them trying to provoke you?"

"Actually, we _know_ that," said Chris.

Gerard smiled. "Ah, humoring the decrepit with your time and company. Not really your modus operandi, Chris."

Chris huffed, annoyed rather than amused, and Talia managed a small grin. Apparently Gerard could provoke his son instead if Talia wouldn't play.

"What I don't understand," said Gerard, his voice following Chris even as his gaze locked on Talia's. "Is why you spend your time with monsters. It isn't just on my account. I would hazard to guess that the two of you are on very, very friendly terms."

"Shut up," said Chris, tired of the effort on that track already.

"We're neighbors." Talia smiled back at Gerard's flash of irritation. "I'm buying a car from him."

"And don't forget the kids' soccer, and PTA," added Chris. The snarky tone belied the smile he kept in check. Gerard's smile faded as he saw how easily the two played off of each other against him.

"You're nesting again?" he asked Talia. "Building a new pack? From _my_ family?"

"The pack was already built," she told him. "I was welcomed in to it."

At a warning glance from Chris, Talia didn't say more. It would have dug into Gerard like a permanent craw if he knew his remaining hunter legacy was forever tarnished by the packs in Beacon Hills that he had never managed to put down. Talia reasoned that was a card better left for later.

"A pack? Whose?" Gerard asked. He turned to face Chris. "Is that why you reek of her? You are the very thing we hunted?"

Talia blinked at the question, caught completely off guard by Gerard's observation. The old man was a wolf now, tainted by the kanima he had controlled and the mountain ash he had consumed, but his senses still worked. And he had picked up on things that Talia herself hadn't.

"He's not a wolf," Talia said.

"But I have a _pack_ ," added Chris. "And I'm learning that it is not something so easily codified by our rules as hunters. Things you _don't_ know, and wouldn't understand."

Talia was once again surprised. She crouched to lean back against the wall, withdrawing from the conversation until she felt on more familiar ground. The last person she would have expected to hear Chris admit the pack to was Gerard Argent. The old man's angry glare turned back to Talia then.

"I knew you were the wrong one," he hissed at her. "We could have gotten everything we needed from your children. We could have ended the line. We should have..."

"That's enough," said Chris sharply. "She has nothing to-"

"She does. She's corrupted the line, corrupted our name. You-"

"I _created_ my pack before she came!" Chris stepped forward, put himself between Gerard and Talia. "I chose an alpha, I put down the hunters who went after her, I _threw out_ your precious legacy. I did that. On my own."

"You _fool_! You don't know what you're doing," said Gerard. The man was spitting angry but Talia felt safe where she was sitting behind Chris.

"Maybe not _then_ but I know what I'm doing _now_. You killed _my_ family. You took _my wife_ from me, turned my baby sister into a _monster_. You tried to have _Allison_ killed to make a point. What I'm doing is repairing the damage _you_ wrought."

"Get out!"

The demand was the last thing Chris expected and he took a step back. Talia looked on, surprised and elated. Chris had gotten to him. They had something to hold over the old man now. They had just won some territory back from his manipulations. Chris shifted to the side, looked down at Talia. She nodded. They could quit while they were ahead on this visit. Chris unfolded his arms, offered a hand to help her stand and the simple kindness was enough to drag Gerard disapprovingly from his chair.

Talia's eyes flashed at the danger, the rest of her tensed to move. Chris caught the warning and turned in time to catch his father's attack. Talia stepped aside as Chris used Gerard's momentum to guide the man into the wall and pin him there with an arm across the throat.

"Your chance at redemption is gone. I am _done_ with you. Allison is beyond done with you," Chris said quietly in his dangerous calm. "At this point, old man, the only reason you are allowed to exist anywhere near _our pack_ is the information you've got locked up in your head. _That's_ your damn legacy. From here on out, you might want to learn to be more forthcoming with it."

A wide-eyed Gerard looked from Chris to glare angrily at Talia over his shoulder. Chris shook him to regain his attention.

"Am I clear?" he asked.

Gerard rasped out an affirmative and Chris let him down from the wall. He walked the man back to his chair and sat him down into it.

"We'll see you later, _Dad_." There was no affection in the tone or the hand that slapped at Gerard's shoulder. Talia hung back a step behind him, letting the man glare at her for a moment. Chris held the door.

"Talia," he said quietly. Chris was still on edge from dealing with his father so Talia didn't press her luck any further. She let him escort her out. They stopped at the nurses' desk to pass along that Gerard had dropped into another “episode” and any calls he made should be logged in case of problems. Then they made for the exit. In the elevator on the way down to the parking level, Talia eased in to Chris' space, her back to him to stand between him and the rest of the world until he calmed down and caught up fully with the choice he had made and couldn’t take back.

"That... Was not the smartest thing I've ever done," Chris said. He was a different quiet, less dangerous and more worried. The hunter sounded a little shaky. Talia pressed the Elevator Stop button and, as the lighting switched to back-up power, she turned around to face him.

"No, probably not," she agreed. She met his eyes and he didn't back away. Instead, his breathing evened out and he calmed down. "But I would argue that it was the bravest. We'll deal with whatever it brings on. But at least you did something we can work from next time."

The lights flickered as someone paged the elevator down to the lobby and the car resumed course. Talia waited at his shoulder as the car stopped. When the doors opened, Chris set a hand to her back to guide her out ahead of him.

"Next time I come armed," said Chris. "Screw their policies."

 

***

 

Days after he had come home, Stiles was all but invisible to the wolves, but at least he could be seen and heard if not otherwise sensed. Derek snuck shirts from his closet when it started to get to him but so far only Scott had noticed and he seemed to think it was a good idea more than anything. He stole Stiles’ hat more than once. The moments with Jennifer-interruptions were handled smoothly, with Stiles quietly excusing himself from whoever was babysitting him that hour, Derek quietly following and either blatantly eavesdropping on Stiles’ one-sided arguments or pinning him to the wall when Stiles couldn’t handle them. It riled Jennifer and Stiles readily encouraged anything that accomplished that; he could full-out panic and still win the battle.

But Stiles wouldn’t tell the others what he learned from their arguments, and he threatened extreme pain if Derek broke the confidence. His head wasn’t pack territory and he stuck to that logic. He was going to figure it out for himself, and Derek could either help and watch, or he could sit on the bench with everybody else on the team. It still hurt that he couldn’t feel like a part of the team anymore; if he had to earn it back, he damn well would.

The bruises and abrasions from the purging rite faded with the help of the balm, and the ash burned into his skin started to scab over and peel off like a bad sunburn. The handprint on Stiles’ ribs looked like a bruise, not quite fading to the pale of everywhere else, and the stripes on his back from the tree roots were going to leave marks. He was still colorful, but Stiles was getting used to the idea enough that he actually ventured out of the house. Curiosity nagged at him.

It had taken Stiles almost eight hours to translate Deaton’s instructions off the internet and some books because he didn’t want to bug Lydia or Talia about it. They caught a ride - no way was Stiles walking anywhere, ever again - to the organic foods store, ostensibly for a new batch of the magic-busting-burn-balm. He came back with a collection of vials and bottles and herb packets and was a general embarrassment to anyone with a basic understanding of the mystical arts. He had even found himself an athame and stone mortar and pestle. He was going to make the stuff himself this time. Everything else was just for science. Derek openly worried about the odds that the house would survive.

Stiles stood in the kitchen, by himself for the moment because wolves still did wolfy things and 24/7 cohabitating, especially under chaperone-conditions, tended to cause headaches and sourwolves. He wasn’t really surprised when Jennifer showed up to look over his shoulder.

“You need a bell,” he sniped at her.

“You’re going to need a burn unit,” Jennifer replied. Stiles looked over at her, offended. She pointed at the mix he had been working with for an hour. Painstaking effort at meeting the instructions had gone into a bowl, not helped at all by the fact that Stiles still felt like he was reading Latin off the translation. And the crazy bitch in his head was trashing it. She pointed in at the gooey mess. “ _That_ isn’t going to work.”

“Why not?”

“Because this _isn’t_ chem class, Stiles. It isn’t about exact measurements,” said Jennifer.  Stiles rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. Energies, sparks, I got it,” muttered Stiles. He poked at the bowl with the knife and saw that it wasn’t looking like the stuff he had been living on for two days. He gave the shade at his shoulder a dirty look. “Did it occur to you guys that maybe you scrubbed _your_ power when you scrubbed _my_ pack? I might not even be able to do _this_ stuff anymore.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jennifer cut in. But Stiles caught the flash of worry. It showed up on her face and it gave him a stabbing headache. He shoved the bowl at her.

“Fine,” he challenged. “Then show me. I’m cleaning up your mess anyway.”

 

***

 

Talia wasn't doing so well. She was running on fumes and fear lately; if it wasn't the pack with a problem, it was an outside force to be reckoned with. She was less than a month into her new life, and compared to the predictable pattern of her old one, she had dropped into chaos.

One predictable thing was that, with school out for the day and Stiles still too marked up to go back to it anyway, she at least knew where to find both of her kids. Chris dropped her at the Stilinski place before he went on his own way. She caught Cora with Scott on the front porch and waved her inside.

"Where's your brother?" she asked.

"Hiding from Blake," said Cora. Talia frowned but accepted it. Hiding amounted to the back porch and she steered Cora out with her. They very carefully avoided a one-sided, technically armed, argument in the kitchen, which explained why Stiles’ babysitters were hiding outside. The two Hales dropped onto the steps on either side of Derek. Talia leaned on her son’s shoulder and closed her eyes, guard down for a moment of recovery. The usually walled-off Derek allowed the intrusion in his space and even caught her hand to silently add to the support she needed just then.

“Mom?” asked Cora. “Are you okay?”

Talia nodded. She was in no hurry to move at all. “My afternoon was terrible. How was yours?”

“I had school. It’s a new semester. It was like watching paint dry,” said Cora. She leaned on her knees and rested her chin on her hand to better keep an eye on her mom. “And then I came back here to help deal with the not-crazy in there and I’m really not sure he’s sane anymore. So that was fun.”

“He’s still sane,” said Derek quietly. “I think.”

The teen beside him scoffed. “Yeah, well. I worry about your sanity often enough anyway so that wasn’t exactly a glowing endorsement.”

Talia grinned, content to stay quiet as the two verbally roughhoused from one topic to the next. They ran out quickly, more an indication of the doldrums of the day than their dedication to sibling rivalry. It was almost quiet enough to take a nap and Talia decided she needed to shake herself out of it. Get moving again.

“There could be problems with the hunters sooner rather than later.” The report was quiet and mostly relaxed, but there was no hiding the wariness in her voice. She felt Derek look over at her and sat up a little straighter to let him have his space if he needed it. Cora’s expression promised pain and slow death to whatever hunters deserved it and Talia shook her head at the both of them. “I don’t know what will come of what happened today. I don’t even know if we’ll tell Melissa and Casey about it. But Gerard knows about the pack. That Chris is in it, that I’m in it. That’s enough of a target for that old man any day.”

“Why would he tell-” Cora’s attitude was quieted by a look from her mother.

“We needed something over him. We got it. Tomorrow we’ll go back and see if the gamble paid off,” said Talia. “I told you this because I want you to be safe, not because I need help dealing with him. Clear?”

“Yeah,” grumbled Cora. Derek frowned down at the muddy grass out beyond the stairs and just nodded. Talia tugged on his hand to get his attention back.

“Just trust me to handle it.  This is _mine_ to deal with,” she said quietly.  “He stole our family, yes.  But he stole _my pack_ from me.  Let me handle my last duties as an alpha, even if it is a few years too late.  Alright?”

Derek seemed to understand that easier and nodded again.  “I won’t interfere. But I’ll help.”

There was a reluctant second from Cora.  And then a crash from the kitchen.  Derek went impossibly tense and seemed torn, so Talia shoved lightly at his shoulder.  “Go.”

The moment he disappeared, Talia traded him in for her daughter instead.  She wasn’t feeling picky, just momentarily clingy.  And after six years without her family, she was way behind on the clingy-quota.

 

***

 

Derek walked into the kitchen at probably the wrong time. He was stopped dead by the active argument Stiles was having with Jennifer about sea salt being used as an ingredient in a cure-all for cuts and skin abrasions.

“I don’t care what you say about it, I’m not switching it,” said Stiles, animated and stabbing an accusatory dagger at Jennifer. Derek looked on confused and worried about why he was waving the blunt knife into the air in front of the refrigerator.  Stiles ignored him and tried to focus on the contrary Druid he couldn’t actually stab.  “You’re just trying to make it worse.  Deaton says it’s a _paste_ , not a freakin’ bath scrub, so that’s what it’s gonna be.  Now are you gonna teach me this or not?”

Jennifer blinked at him, surprised enough that she stepped back.  “Wait.  You want me to _teach_ you this?”

Stiles shrugged and nodded.  “Yeah.  You say I’m some kind of conduit for all this magical Druid power. I damn well better know how to not blow off my own head with it then, shouldn’t I?”

Eventually, Jennifer smiled at him. She looked like a proud hen and fluffed up a little, straightened her skirt and jacket. “Nice to see you’re coming around...”

“Woah!” Stiles held up the knife to signal a full stop to that train of thought. “This is not a _coming around_. This is a cease-fire. An educational reach-across-the-aisle _opportunity_.  To the mutual benefit of both parties, because I don’t think you want me blowing my head off either if you expect to serve an eviction notice someday and move on in.  Don’t want me trashing the place, do you?”

Jennifer stared at him again.  Stiles looked at her, expression flat. He looked over at Derek pointedly and then back to Jennifer.  “ _That_ ,” he said, referring to Derek without actually mentioning him in a way that could be overheard, “Is just _one_ potential problem with the idea of giving _me_ latent and unattended super-phenomenal-Druid-powers. And do not make me tell you _why_ because _you_ won’t like it.”

Derek blinked at Stiles.  A distracted Stiles shrugged at him, trying to keep his attention on Jennifer.

“What?” he asked.  “I read.  I know... things.”

At Derek’s continued confusion, Stiles grinned and did an interpretive dance to illustrate what he wouldn’t say out loud around werewolves who would run to tell his dad. Derek turned and started to leave the room, rolling his eyes at the ceiling, but he seemed to realize he probably wanted to hear this, however weird it had just gotten. Jennifer looked like she wanted to claw Stiles’ face off but restrained herself.

“I am not... no! No sex magic, ugh,” said Jennifer firmly. Stiles cringed and looked around the room before remembering that Derek couldn’t even hear the woman and he was five feet away from her. Stiles had been arguing with himself, as far as anyone else was concerned, for nearly an hour. They all must think he was well past Crazytown. Too bad. He was dealing.

“That’s not what I meant,” said Stiles, calmly lowering his voice anyway.  “I mean _think_ of all that could go wrong if I have all this potential locked up in me and I can’t even access it to make a burn-lotion.  If I can’t access it then I can’t control it. I can’t control it, _Boom!_   You, him, me... Everybody goes.”

“Then let me take over, problem solved,” returned Jennifer.

“No. If I go, you go. Until then, no bad-teacher-touch,” said Stiles.  Across the room, Derek gagged at whatever the one-sided conversation must have sounded like at that point.  Stiles shrugged it off.  He looked to Jennifer.  “So you can either do the Druid-thing and _teach_ me, like Tal and Rowan taught you. Or you can stay locked up in my head until my dangerous lifestyle catches up to my inner Druid.  AKA you.”

Jennifer crossed her arms, irritated.  She blinked out without saying another word.  Stiles stared at the empty space where she used to be, then back at Derek.  He shrugged.

“Fine,” he said.  He pointed the dagger at the bowl in front of him on the counter. “Can _you_ fix this?”

Derek buried his face in his palms.

 

***

 

The door slammed unusually easy and Chris cringed hardly two steps into his house. He hadn't meant to do that. Still, it was done. Another confrontation started. Chris made his way to his office. He wasn't surprised to see Allison peek her head out of her bedroom door.

"It went that well?" she asked. Chris shook his head.

"Sorry. I'm just..." Chris snarled, frustrated, and ducked into the office. Not that he was avoiding her, more that he didn't know what to say. She had no family left in her eyes and Chris had just cost her the however-unwanted grandfather on top of it. He had made too many mistakes to know where to start.

It was a few minutes before Allison poked her head into the office. She seemed to have steeled herself and walked in with her arms crossed and an agenda on her mind.

"So what happened?" she asked. Chris huffed and shook his head at the soldier's tone.

"We got to him this time," he finally said. "But I had to use the pack to do it."

"You told him about the packs?"

" _No_ , I told him about _mine_ ," corrected Chris.  He intentionally didn’t even mention Melissa.  "I wasn't thinking or I wouldn't have done it.  But I was tired of his games.  He wouldn't leave Talia alone and some of the things he said... I just reacted.  Badly."

"Yeah.  Badly." Allison looked at him, weighing him out.  "How bad was it?"

Chris winced and finally made himself look his daughter in the eye. "Basically? I called the old man out. We're disowned, he's disowned, and there's plenty of bad blood to go out on."

Allison stared at him, quiet for far too long. "Alright. Fine," she said. "Is Talia okay?"

Chris huffed. " _She's_ fine."

“And tomorrow you go back and keep working at him?” asked Allison.

Chris sighed and nodded. “Yes. Tomorrow.”

“Both of you?” The question wasn’t one to be argued with, from Allison’s tone, but Chris couldn’t tell what the _correct_ answer was supposed to be.  His daughter was in hunter-mode and angling some fight against her grandfather’s agenda, that much was obvious, but she was unreadable on the subject of Talia’s involvement.

“That had been the plan?” said Chris. Allison stared at him, thinking so loud that Chris couldn’t concentrate. She finally nodded.

“Good.” She relaxed and offered a smile. “Then I’ll go back to my homework. You guys can deal with him, I’ll deal with school.”

“Great plan,” said Chris. He shook his head. He missed school very much suddenly. The homework was so much easier to deal with.

 

***


	13. Chapter 13

Four whole days after Stiles’ adventure with the Druids, Derek was back to sneaking in windows.  It occurred to him then that, under the circumstances, the easy access to Stiles’ bedroom was a security problem more than a convenient way to avoid arrest and-or justifiable homicide. They hadn’t heard anything from Jennifer since the blow up in the kitchen, and Derek’s mom and Chris had gotten exactly nowhere with Gerard Argent; who knew what was actually seeking them out.  And Stiles’ window was just right there for anyone to break into, at any time.  Derek wasn’t sure how to fix it without bringing it to Casey’s attention, though, and that idea would completely negate the conversation.

After letting himself in, he crouched in front of the window for a minute, trying to think of a solution to the problem that the sheriff wouldn’t notice and that wouldn’t lock _Derek_ out.  Stiles had waved him inside and knew he was there, so he stared at Derek in open confusion from his computer desk.

“What are you even doing?” Stiles finally asked.  Derek had to fight not to grin.

“You’ve spent the last four days talking to yourself and you’re worried that I’m staring at a window?” he asked.

“Shutup,” returned Stiles. Still, he left his chair and moved to mock Derek by examining the window with him.

“Pine and paint.  Double insulated storm glass,” Stiles rattled off. He pointed to the sticker residue in one corner of the glass. “That used to say WTF until my twelve year old self stupidly told my dad what that meant.”

“Fascinating,” said Derek dryly. Crouched beside him, arms over his thighs and only a little off-balance, Stiles offered up a shrug.

“You’re staring at a _window_ , dude.  What, is it supposed to close on its own or something?  I don’t have one of those kind.  It goes up, it goes down... no slide-and-swish.”

The thought actually caused Derek pain and he shook his head. “That’s what I’m worried about.  Anybody can get in here.”

“Not really.  Scott used to try.  It always kicked his ass and he had to use the door,” said Stiles, not catching on.  Derek raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes, because Scott’s sometimes an idiot.  But has he tried it _recently_?”

“Door...” repeated Stiles slowly.  He caught on then and frowned.  “Oh.  Werewolf.  Right.”

“No marks, no pack territory, big open window...” said Derek.  Stiles nodded.  He fell sideways from his crouch and sprawled on his side toward his bed. A moment later he sat up with a metal baseball bat and a smart-ass grin. Derek shook his head and tugged the bat away to roll it back where it had come from.

“We could get some ash or something,” said Stiles. “Not tonight, but I mean. That would do the trick.”

That earned another roll of the eyes from Derek. “Scott can knock on the door but I’m not sure your dad really wants to know when I show up all the time.”

Stiles smirked at him. “Like now?”

“Maybe,” replied Derek. The grin broke loose then. Stiles took advantage of Derek’s balanced stance and tugged on his shirt front to bring him down to easier reach.

 

***

 

The chaperone situation no longer applied. Derek was the only wolf in the Stilinski house.  And as long as he was out of it by sun-up, to at least knock on the door and _pretend_ he hadn’t just snuck _out_ the window, they had no reason to worry about any wolf hyper-senses being brought in to tattle-tale.

The downside of that was keeping the awkward, handsy, teenage-hormone-plagued Stiles from pressing too far, too fast.  It took a lot of _work_ to get Stiles to settle down to go to sleep instead.  Derek cheated and mentioned Jennifer and Stiles _instantly_ scowled at him.  It got Stiles’ hands away from Derek’s pants so Derek considered it a win, however frustrating for the both of them.

“And you said _I_ talk too much,” grumbled Stiles.

“You do,” said Derek.  And he would never admit out loud to loving it.

“Nope, pretty sure you just beat me in that category, man. Worst possible time to bring up the ex-who-lives-in-my-head...”

“You’re the one who brought up sex magic yesterday.” Derek hissed at him just because he was irrationally afraid of being heard mentioning _sex magic_ after Stiles’ crack about not dying a virgin got them chaperoned for a few very long days.  “So yeah, that thing you really, _really_ want? Totally not gonna happen after those visuals.”

Stiles flopped over onto his stomach and punched at his pillow. “You are the worst. Good god. I can’t even-”

Derek grinned at him. “Sleep now?”

“I hate you _so_ much.” Stiles wouldn’t look at him and pouted at his dresser cabinet instead.

“When are you going to go see Deaton about this whole Jennifer-thing again?”

“I will _kill you_ in your _sleep_.”

“I rest my case,” said Derek. He smiled at the ceiling. “Good night Stiles.”

Stiles kept up the pout for a record-breaking two minutes before he turned back toward Derek and scooted bodily closer.  But he stayed blessedly still and respectful of Derek’s shut-down.  Stiles so far seemed to understand that his determination not to die a virgin came nowhere near Derek’s level of determination to avoid hurting him with the kid’s own short attention span.  Derek listened as his breathing evened out and he fell asleep.

Derek was half asleep when Stiles tugged on his arm, dragged him back to awareness.  “What-”

“Help...” His voice was quiet but almost panicked, and he panted like he couldn’t breathe. Derek stared at him in the dark, confused. In the month since Tahoe, Derek had been in Stiles’ space while he slept or dozed easily a hundred times, and never once had the kid woken up in a panic attack. They happened after he woke up, but Stiles didn’t go from a dead sleep to _panic_.

“You’re okay-” Derek’s quiet assurance was met with a stubborn shake of the head and more rapid breathing.  He let Stiles lean into him, got him sitting up away from the wall, a little less claustrophobic.  But it still wasn’t right.  This wasn’t like anything Stiles had gone through before. It wasn’t a surprise when Stiles tried the trick he had learned from Lydia, but even the kiss felt wrong.  It was too focused, too determined, not at all like Stiles’ usual desperate efforts to _find_ him to focus on.  Derek cupped a hand to Stiles’ jaw to keep him back.

“Hey.  Let’s try something else,” he said.  “Not that.”

Stiles shook his head and pawed at Derek’s chest, then lower.  Derek caught his face in both hands, careful but not letting him angle any closer. The kid was after something, but he wasn’t panicking.  His heartrate was fine.  He was faking it.  Being used and manipulated was not something Derek tolerated well.

“Stiles! Knock it off!” he ordered, quiet only because he refused to wake Sheriff Stilinski up over the trick. Derek’s eyes glowed red to back it up. Stiles stilled.  Almost half a minute later, the teen’s eyes flashed the eerie blue at the edges.  It stopped Derek’s anger quickly. Stiles only did that when he was scared, but there was too much of a delay between the response and Derek pulling rank. The defensive response wasn't to a fear of Derek.  It was _Stiles_ coming back online.  It took another moment for the kid to become aware after that and he blinked at Derek, still blue and brown in the dark.  His breathing was normal again.

“What?” asked Stiles.  He sounded groggy, like he had just woken up.  Derek stared at him, confused and close to panicking himself.  Stiles didn’t seem to notice.  “Why’d you wake me up?”

“You woke _me_ up,” said Derek. “You don’t remember that part?”

Stiles’ eyes widened.  “No... I was _asleep_.”

Derek pulled back, one hand slipped to Stiles’ shoulder to keep track of his pulse at his neck as much as to keep him away and focused. “You woke me up and _faked_ a panic attack.”

“I- that’s bull- _I don’t do that_ -” Stiles was working himself toward a genuine panic attack now and Derek could feel it happening.  That was real and had to be headed off before it took hold.

“Then we’re going downstairs to watch movies the rest of the night,” Derek said quietly.  “You can’t be alone right now, and _she’s_ not allowed near me.”

Stiles nodded quickly, but that dissolved into an adamant denial.  “I swear t’god I didn’t do that... which means _really_ bad things but I- I didn’t.”

“I know, Stiles. I was there.  I saw it happen,” said Derek.  “And I’m a _little_ weirded out by that part.”

“ _You_ are!” Stiles had backed off from panic but he was a long way from calm.  Derek tugged him in with the hand at the back of his neck and Stiles watched him, eyes still tinged in blue.  He stopped just out of reach and met Stiles’ gaze.  Anyone else would have gone in for the kiss; _Stiles_ just stared and calmed.

“You’re _you_ right now.  We’ll work with that.” Derek smiled at him.  The blue began to fade.

 

***

 

It almost felt like cheating. Stiles didn't like it for so many reasons.  Most of them got back around to Derek being fully justified in never talking to him again.  The guy had tried to get Stiles to work with Deaton on an almost daily basis: hints, veiled threats, orders that Stiles was free to ignore... And none of it worked.  Deaton scared the ever-living everything out of Stiles because of Jennifer, Tal and Rowan. He didn’t want to hang out with the guy anymore.  Ever.  His life would be _perfect_ if he could just convince _Scott_ that his boss was an evil Druid, but that just wasn’t in the cards.

But Jennifer scared him into it.  The incident that morning had almost gotten him put on lockdown again.  Instead, Derek had decided to let Stiles figure it out on his own.  He wandered around the house as a four legged black wolf all day and back to his place once Scott showed up to resume babysitting duties.  It wasn’t an abandonment, it was a _smart plan_.  Jennifer was getting worse. The un-dead Druid had pried into his dreams two nights in a row because Stiles had asked her to teach him. She set up a classroom and everything, and it was seven kinds of creepy. He still remembered every second of the dreams, but he had no way of knowing what to trust of what she had told him. And after the near-miss that morning, he was positive she probably _was_ trying to kill him and he wouldn't actually _know_. The only way he could check would be: Yep, ask Deaton.  And Stiles didn't think he could handle a phone call on the subject matter so it had to be in-person.

Just standing in the lobby made Stiles feel ill.  He walked in, stood there a moment, then turned and started to walk out again.

"Just go ask him.  He'll tell you I'm right," said Jennifer.  She blinked into view behind the counter, her arms crossed and her frown disapproving. "Stiles, you're already here,"

It wasn't that he cared what she thought of him, but she had a point.

The indecision frustrated Stiles and he finally turned back around and marched for the gate.  He was there, he had shown up, which meant he had already made a decision and now had to stick to it.  His nerves would just have to man-up and calm down because he wasn't listening to them.

The determination lasted until he reached out to jump over the gate.  He had done it many times before.  Never had the gate blocked him though. His hand hit the energy and pressed, jamming his fingers against a hard wall of empty air.  Stiles jumped back, confused. He held his hands up to the invisible barrier.  He wasn't being allowed in.

Jennifer raised an eyebrow at him.  "Are you coming in or not?" she asked.

Stiles looked from her to the mountain ash-guarded gate.  He tried again to push through and almost blacked out.  Stiles caught himself on a chair and slid back away from the gate.  That wasn't normal.  And it wasn't okay.  He wasn't a wolf.  He shouldn't have problems with the ash.  There was something else.

"Try again, damnit." Stiles looked up at Jennifer's frustrated encouragement.  She wanted him to cross the gate.  The ash had something to do with _her_.  Stiles scrambled to his feet and hit the door before the Druid could cause him any real trouble.  He had a headache from the gate barrier now and that was bad enough.  Instinct said it would have been a lot worse if he had crossed the ash line.

 

***


	14. Chapter 14

Stiles sat in the preserve, by himself, staring at his phone.  He hadn’t slept and was running on coffee and adderall and fear. From what he could tell, he was going to need help. But that meant fessing up that he had been dealing with a very vocal Jennifer without telling anyone.  And that he had just pissed her off the day before.

But what Stiles wanted to try wasn't something Jennifer had taught him.  It was something he had learned from Tal and Rowan. They had set him on fire so many times that he had it memorized.  He could do it himself but he needed an extra set of hands, short of someone who actually knew what they were doing.

Derek might be willing to help him do it.  Lydia _could_ probably do it but she would lecture him and then go back to her weekend.  Scott wouldn't let him, and his dad was completely not an option.  His dad had noticed the stuff Stiles tried to keep from him; the dizzy spells, the constant feeling of being cold, the occasional motor-skills _rejection_.  He had stopped asking if Stiles was okay, out loud, but he still gave him that look. Stiles wasn't letting his dad worry about him anymore than he already had.  But he couldn't do _nothing_ and let the guy watch him slowly disappear, either.  Or worse, turn in to Jennifer.

Stiles caved.  He was freezing his ass off out in the middle of the woods in the dark.  He'd deal with the fights he was inviting later.  He punched Derek's name on his phone and waited.

"Do you know what time it is?" Derek was certainly cheerful already. Wolves weren't psychic, right?

"G'mornin' baby," said Stiles, the taunt as much snarky smart-ass he could throw into it.  Just in case wolves really were psychic; he had to throw him off the trail.

"You want something," said Derek.

"Maybe not. I could just-" Stiles could feel the glare through the cell phone connection and stopped lying.  "Okay yes. I want _you_.  Here.  Now."

Derek was silent for a long minute.  "At not even five am on a Sunday?"

"Wait.  Well _yes_ but no," said Stiles, catching on to the werewolf's thought-train.  A proud grin lit his face.  "Dude, for once you went there first.  I totally didn't mean it that way."

"Stiles? Point?"

"Okay! I'm gonna do something stupid.  And I need a witness."  Stiles scrubbed at his face.  "But it's not actually stupid. I think it will work."

"Not good enough."

Stiles stared at the phone like it had personally offended him, mimed throwing it at a tree. "You don't even know what it is."

"I know that if you're calling something _stupid_ , it's actually suicidal."

Stiles had to think about that one.  Then he shrugged and nodded.  "Okay _fine_.  I'm going to commit seppuku at the Nemeton.  Are you gonna help me or not?"

"The- _Don't_ do anything!  I'm coming to get you."

“You are _so_ not allowed to come anywhere without me, dude.  Not even fair.  A freakin’ month...”

“No, now I’m going to _kill_ you.”

Stiles smiled, bright and hopeful.  "Bring your mom?"

" _Stiles!_ "

Stiles ended the call before Derek climbed through it or something.

 

***

 

It wasn't until he heard the car doors slam back at the parking lot that Stiles realized the mistake in his planning.  It was still dark, clouds threatening a cold rain by noon only making it worse.  He had no recognizable scent, which meant no trail for Derek to follow to him.

"Great." Stiles dug back into his backpack and pulled out the flashlight.  He flipped it on and waved it around like a nightstick.  It took a few minutes and Stiles had progressed on to nunchucks and bad karate moves, but it worked.  Derek and Talia moved silently out from behind the trees. Derek looked worried-mad and Talia looked worried-tired. Stiles' good idea was completely wasted on overprotective wolves.  His smile faded and he sighed.

" _Don't_ be mad," he said quickly. "Just gimmie a minute and listen."

" _One_ minute," growled Derek. "Then we leave."

Stiles almost bought the gruff attitude. Then he realized the attitude was contrary to the fact that Talia was there; Derek had woken his mom and dragged her out there for Stiles' stupid idea.  They were in.  He smiled.

"Right."

Derek looked at the wristwatch he wasn't wearing. "Fifty-five seconds."

Stiles jumped and got back on track.  He waved them over and kicked open the door of the root cellar.

"Come on.  I'll show you what- well, yeah, just..." Stiles didn't even know where to start. He stared down at the gaping cellar entrance. It gave him the spooks and was messing with his head already.  Stiles held up the line a moment and looked back at Derek briefly.  He climbed in a step and a frustrated growl escaped.

"Nope.  Really don't wanna be down here.  Shit."  But Stiles ran down the rest of the stairs anyway just to keep himself from turning back.

"Then _why_ are we _here_?" Derek called after him.  Stiles set up a lantern as the others came down.

"Because I think I figured it out. I think I can fix it. And you two are the only ones who might hear me out on it," Stiles said. “Well, aside from She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-or-Else-She’ll-Show-Up. So please don’t.”

"That doesn't mean we'll let you do it," said Derek. "You can't even make the treatment for the burns on your own. I don't think you should even be down here."

Stiles froze where he was unloading his backpack out onto one of the shelves in the cellar.  "Uh... Yeah... _About that..._ "

Derek glared at the ceiling preemptively. Stiles kept himself distracted with the supply shelf. He was rather surprised and almost glad to see that Tal had left a few things there.

"So I've been accidentally studying from _her_ for, like, three days now... "

And that went over about as well as Stiles expected. Derek glared at him for a solid five minutes as he caught them up on what he hadn't told anyone. They were his dreams, in his head, so he wasn't actually required to say anything, but, he still felt like a dirty cheater all of the sudden. With Derek’s ex-psycho-girlfriend even. Especially when he got to the part about getting locked out of Deaton's by the mountain ash boundaries. Even Talia glared at him for that one.

"The _point_ is..." Stiles had to work a little harder to get their focus back after that. "Jennifer’s tried to get me killed twice now. First the thing with Derek, then I almost got bounced out by the mountain ash.  So what all of that tells me is that Jennifer's not in my head. She's in me... Just not a figment of my imagination or something.  It's not her brain, it's her _soul_ , right.  And it's just like Derek called it; I'm just a _lock box_ ," said Stiles.  "But the problem is, the longer it goes on... It's like I'm losing territory.  In _me_."

Stiles leaned against the shelf.  "And I figure I get one shot at explaining all this.  I can't tell what _she's_ thinking, so she can't tell what _I'm_ thinking. Once I put it out there though?  She can hear it.  Whether I'm right or wrong, I'm fair game.  I explain and we do it, or I _don't_ , and I figure out how to do it on my own."

"That's extortion," said Derek.  He wasn't as angry as he could have been.

"That would _not_ be the most illegal thing I've ever done," replied Stiles.  He shrugged.  "It's gonna suck, but I'm doing this thing, one way or the other.  It's gonna work."

Derek and Talia exchanged a look, which absolutely baffled Stiles; how could two unreadable people manage to read each other?  One of the wolf things Stiles was resigned to never figuring out.  Whatever they saw, it seemed to be in Stiles' favor.

"Fine.  We can try it," said Derek. Talia moved around the room then, sneaking the lighter from the shelf by Stiles' shoulder and lighting the dusty, cobwebbed candles that Rowan and Tal had left behind.  Stiles felt worse suddenly, realizing how much these people still trusted him and cared about him even after he had just confessed to _lying_ to them.  It was only compounded by the fact that Talia hadn’t been a stranger to helping her emissary back-in-the-day and seemed perfectly comfortable setting up the work table across the room with what Stiles had spilled out on to shelves.

"You're not gonna like it," he promised the both of them. He hung his head and scrubbed at his face rather than look at either of them. "I'm sorry."

"We already don't like it, Pup," said Talia. "But I promised you there was no giving up, we would try anything that might help.  If you found something, we'll try it."

"Fair enough," said Stiles.

"So what are we doing?" asked Derek.  Stiles pulled a face, took a deep breath to drag the scheme into words for the first time.

"Well, when this all started... they had to get you and the pack purged out of me, right? They had to get at _me_ , narrow down the number of targets, cut out the _energy_ taking up room so they could get her in there instead," said Stiles. "But it didn't work.  I'm still here, and my eyes do the _thing_ , so the pack's still _here_.  I just can't tell.  That last purge, the one that hurt so bad?  I think maybe, it was supposed to have burned me out, too.  She was supposed to just move right on in and take over the lease.  It didn't take because of the _pack_."

"Okay," said Derek behind crossed arms.  "I'll buy that. But this better not be going where I think it's going."

Stiles charged ahead quickly.  "So we purge _Jennifer_ out this time.  She and her infinite phenomenal powers can go back to where they came from. The pack will keep _me_ here.  I _win_."

"Or you lose.  Badly," said Derek.  "You don't even know if you can pull off something simple..."

" _This_ I can do!" Stiles pointed toward the tree. "I was right there, watching them do this over and over, for two days.  Even _without_ the power boost from Jennifer I could do this in my _sleep_."

Derek shook his head. "This is bigger... Deaton wouldn't even do this, Stiles. You can't-"

"That's why I asked for help," cut in Stiles. "And you promised, too."

"I didn't think you _actually_ meant you wanted us to assist in a suicide!"

Their volume and their tempers were raised.  Talia stood back out of their way, arms crossed as she looked between the both of them.  She fully expected to break up a fight.  Derek’s tone and stance only helped that guess along.  Stiles was starting to panic, not an attack but genuine fear. This was his last idea, all his cards were on the table, and it was a shitty hand.  If Jennifer had even one ace left, he was _dead_.  Stiles smacked his hand on the shelf, shoved away from it. He wouldn't back down.

"I can do this!" Stiles wasn't quite yelling, but it was loud in the cave under the tree. "I promise you, I can do this one stupid thing _perfectly_.  Just trust me for once!"

Derek squared his shoulders and shook his head. "I trust _you_ , I don't trust _them_!  I can't protect you from this!"

Stiles fell quiet at that as he finally understood the problem.  "But that's not _always_ your job. There is nothing about this that anybody can fix. It's on _me_."

That wasn't an answer Derek wanted to hear and he still refused it, just a lot calmer.  "But you came to me first.  I don't want- There has to be something else."

"I went to you because I trust you, okay? I _wanted_ you to fix it, and I was wrong.  And I'm sorry!"  There was no possible way for Stiles to be any more sincere about that. "But now it's right there staring me in the face and this is all that makes sense and I have to try it."

“It won't work," came a new, very much unwanted voice behind Stiles.

"Holy shi-" He startled and skittered sideways into the shelves. "Gah! Wear a _bell!_ "

"He's right, you're wrong.  It won't work," said Jennifer.

"But, see, here's the thing," returned Stiles, annoyed.  His damaged calm escaped in a sudden, animated shout at the shade he was trying to out-think. "I don't _care_!"

Jennifer scowled at him and crossed her arms, mirroring Derek. Stiles had never wanted to hit the Druid so badly in his life and the frustration was getting harder to ignore. He was so screwed.

"What? She's here?" asked Derek.

Stiles angled away without turning his back on the woman only he could see.  "Of course, yes, she's here.  I told you-"

Derek tilted his head. "What did she say about it?"

"She said it won't work. But _I_ told you-"

Derek didn't let him finish. "Then we do it.  She's scared.  Which means you're on the right track."

"Yes!" Stiles felt like he had just singlehandedly scored all the goals and won regionals.  He put Jennifer on a blatant ignore-mode and shoved by her to get at his things again.

 

****

 

The last thing on Stiles’ list for the spell was that he was not allowed to black out. No naps once the spell started. No naps once it was over. He had maxed out on his super-helpful medicine hours earlier and was running on fumes and fear. Derek stuck close, paid attention when Stiles snapped at the invisible Jennifer and angled between Stiles and the shade whenever possible. He needed to focus to get it right, not let the woman rile him. It seemed to work.

And then Stiles had to turn it over to Derek and Talia. He drew rough symbols in the dirt that Derek had to mark on his chest and stomach in the clay they covered him in. Stiles taught Talia the chants he said Rowan muttered because Derek wasn’t comfortable having to talk just then. He was worried, he was angry and he was scared, and even though he wouldn’t admit that to anyone, Stiles and Talia picked up on it. There were two of them to help, so they played to the strengths in the offering: Derek did the touching and Talia did the magicking. Stiles had thought this stuff through, the jerk.

Derek didn’t start to panic until Stiles walked over to the tree, covered in mud and looking like a wildling from a swamp. Then he looked up at the beam above and Derek tried to back out again.

“No,” he said.

“Yep. Help,” said Stiles expectantly. He narrowed his eyes at Derek. “You think I’m happy about this? Come on, man.”

Derek looked over at Talia, his arms crossed and his entire posture nothing but uncomfortable. Talia managed a tight grin.

“You don’t have to ask my permission, you’ve already got his,” she said wryly. “And I promise I won’t mention it to Casey.”

Derek and Stiles both choked.  Stiles’ heart rate went through the roof at her joke.

“God no! No telling Dad anything.  Ever.  Did I forget to mention that part? I _know_ I mentioned that part.”

Derek still stood there, outside the incomplete circle of mountain ash around where Stiles waited.  Stiles reached and took the shackles down, - nice of the Druids to leave their toys behind - and popped the key out of the lock.  Fighting the handcuffs Stiles had filched from his dad, while lit on fire, would probably wrench all circulation out of his fingers; the shackles were wider bands and already fire-tested. And it wasn’t reasonable to expect anybody to just _stand still_ while they caught on _fire_.  And Derek wanted it to _work_.  So when Stiles lifted his bound hands up that far, Derek caught the chain between them on the hook mounted apparently for that purpose when the Druids rebuilt the cellar. When he looked back down, Stiles stood in front of him, flat footed and testing the give on the chains.  Like he had been exactly there before and knew exactly what he would need to work with again.  Derek frowned at him.  Stiles stood still and smiled back.

“It’s gonna work. Okay? I promise. Five minutes and it’s all done,” he said. Derek nodded.  He poked at the paste caked on Stiles’ jaw.

“You’re going to smell like this shit for another month,” he said, completely unenthusiastic at the prospect. Stiles shrugged and his muddy face stretched from a bigger smile.

“Yeah, but when it works you can go back to marking me,” he said. “Because I’ll _be_ me, in my own _me_ -body with no freeloaders in the lobby stinking up the place.” Derek wanted to start that project already.

“It better work then,” was all he said. Stiles nodded. He fidgeted slightly, the nervous energy that came when he was biting his tongue on something he really wanted to say. Derek knew the feeling. Careful of the clay, he caught Stiles by the back of the neck and touched their foreheads together. Stiles leaned in and coaxed him into a kiss, not caring at all about the muck on his face.

“Celebrate when it’s over, gentlemen,” said Talia from the sidelines.  In her Mom voice.  Derek coughed and pulled back.  Stiles grinned at him.

“Sure thing, Mrs. H,” he said.

Derek painted more paste symbols on while Talia muttered the prayers that went with them. Then Talia closed off the circle of ash and Derek stepped back to let her finish the spell. And the damn spell did exactly what Stiles said it would do.  Talia startled as the kid was engulfed in wrong-colored flames in the tunnel created by the ash.  Derek didn’t like watching it or listening, fighting too hard not to break the line and get Stiles out.  It was almost worse because Stiles somehow stayed quiet, the only noise the crack of flames and the hiss of pressure inside the ash line. But they had to keep track of him, had to be sure he stayed awake and fighting like he said he would.

The flames started to slack off a little and the room around the tree got a little darker, which Stiles had told them to expect.  It was almost done.

And then Stiles blacked out.  His head dropped forward and his body dragged from the beam above, no longer standing on his own power.  Talia kicked a rock they had built into the ash line and Derek pulled Stiles down as the barrier broke.  Stiles curled against him and wrapped his arms behind his neck, but his breathing was labored and slow under the pain.  It was two minutes before he could open his eyes.

It didn’t work.

 

***


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some feelz...
> 
> .......................................................................

Melissa made up some authentic-sounding viral illness and got Stiles excused from school for another week. And loaded with lots of homework. His dad was pissed with a capital _What The Fuck Were You Thinking_ and the two of them had ganged up to ban Derek from the Stilinski house for a few days. They believed every word Talia had made the scraped-up, overly-abrasioned Stiles personally report, and she backed him up, and their response was to take away his Derek. Grouchy and feeling plenty hungover, Stiles pointed out that the man wasn’t a videogame or the internet or something and that they were being completely unreasonable. Which made Melissa glare at Derek until he barked at Stiles to shut up and left the house. Stiles shut up. And he went to his room. Where he stayed until Talia left an hour or so later.

And then he pulled a _Derek_ and snuck out the bedroom window.

Yep, _everybody_ was going to kill Stiles later. Assuming the Druid didn’t eat him first.

***

The walk back to Derek’s was a familiar one; he hurt like he had been dragged on a rope across a gravel road by a sled-team of wolves at full speed, he smelled like clay and smoke and had colored ash for tattoos on his face and arms again, and it was soaking rain outside. Stiles was thinking and conscious this time, not so blurry at all, because they had replicated the lesser purges, not the Grand Finale. Stiles didn’t remember enough of that to have tried it, even if he’d wanted to risk it. He hurt bad enough as it was. But his brain wouldn’t let him leave it alone. It should have worked. And maybe it did; Jennifer had stayed quiet since the morning time, but Stiles wasn’t interested in saying her name to conjure her up, either. He still felt like a cold, clumsy version of himself, and he still couldn’t feel the pack. Stiles missed that as much as he missed his sanity, most days.

He wound up back at Derek’s door and, because he was soaked through and an escapee from the worst grounding he’d had since he was eight years old, Stiles knocked. Mostly he knocked because he had screwed up and manners would go a lot further toward fixing it than being annoying could accomplish. Despite carefully cultivated common assumptions, he did know the difference. The door opened and Derek looked out at him, completely not surprised.

“If you faint, I’m leaving you there,” he warned. Stiles rolled his eyes and dragged himself through the door, fully capable.

“I’m not fainting,” he said, offended. “No blood this time. We’re good.”

“No. We’re not,” said Derek. Stiles glared at the ceiling. He followed Derek over to the desk.

“Seriously? Are you gonna get mad at me because I was wrong?”

Derek looked up at him from his chair and his book. “No, I’m mad because you could have died _and_ you were wrong. You made me _help_ you. To almost _die_.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” said Stiles. “Why does no one remember _that_ part?”

The book was smacked on to the table again and Derek glared at Stiles. “Maybe because _we_ watched you _burn_?”

Under the road rash on his face Stiles paled. Derek nodded.

“Yeah, remember the _Hales_? With the creepy old burned out house you used to hunt up dead bodies in,” said Derek, more than a little bitter and angry. “Forgot about that part when you asked _our_ help, huh?”

Stiles opened his mouth to lie that he hadn’t forgotten, but he stopped. That was one detail he had overlooked in everything else. In all the research and translating and thinking he had wasted hours of his life on before putting it all together into one disaster, he hadn’t considered what it would look like from the other side. “I-Look, I’m sorry. I said it then, too, ‘cause I am... I just didn’t know what else to do.”

It got him hurrumphed at by a werewolf. Once again Stiles didn’t know what else to do so he sat down on the floor next to Derek to wait the man out. Sitting on the furniture would get him sniped at because he was wet, and stripping out of the wet clothes was also a very bad idea with Derek’s mood, but the floor, well, that could handle water. And he sure as shit wasn’t walking home again any time soon. Stiles shrugged off his jacket and let it form its own puddle a foot or so further off. He kicked his shoes over with it. He was maybe twenty-percent less-wet and counted that as an improvement. Stiles curled up over his aching legs and set his head on his folded arms.

It took about two minutes for Derek to crack. He looked down from his reading, the same old annoyance on his face. “What are you even doing?”

“Waiting for you to figure out if you’re going to bounce my head off the table or let me borrow your dryer?” replied Stiles. Derek rolled his eyes.

“Go,” was all he said. Stiles jumped up and headed for Derek’s bedroom to borrow clothes. He came back after a few steps, curled his arms around Derek’s shoulders from behind the chair, and kissed his forehead. Then he left for the bedroom. When he glanced back, Derek was still glaring at the ceiling.

 

***

 

The penthouse apartment wasn't as flashy as it sounded like it should have been. The same floor plan as Chris and Allison's place, but vaulted ceilings and bigger windows. It was bright and open as a result, and the realtor had said the electric bill was going to be a bitch. Talia used the fireplaces for the reason they were installed, and it seemed fine to her.

But that night, the fireplace idea bothered her badly. She kept them closed and steered Cora and Peter toward the thermostat whenever someone observed it was cold. Peter was avoiding a very cranky Derek and had no problems because the couch at his big sister’s place was still going to be warmer than his car. Cora looked at her a little closely but left it alone. Not long after that, she left for Scott's.

Cora's response to things she didn't understand was to leave, and she didn't understand the quiet tension in her mother. Talia wasn't inclined to tell Cora what Stiles had done that morning; the two got along about as well as Derek and Cora got along, although Stiles was more patient with her. That would change if Cora found out about Stiles' failed efforts at magic. And under the circumstances, Talia was afraid of what might be triggered in her brother if the fire was mentioned. So she kept quiet, hid behind the iPad the boys had gotten her, and tried to lull her mind to sleep early. She managed to nod off after only an hour of trying once the apartment around her went quiet.

Talia woke up on a shout not long later. Her dreams were consumed by fires. Silent fires attacking everything she had slowly come to accept as home over the last few weeks. Including her grown children.

Talia gave up on sleep entirely then and got up to find coffee. She would push through until daylight, challenge her brother at chess or crosswords or something. And throttle a pup named Stiles bright and _early_ in the morning.

 

***

 

The quiet was getting to him. Just an empty loft and Stiles and the take-out they had delivered because nobody remembered how to go shopping while dealing with everything falling apart around them. The chink of plates - because Stiles was on a manners-kick now - and big, empty, quiet. And Stiles glaring at him from across the table, when Derek wasn’t glaring at him _first_. There was a fight happening and Derek couldn’t prove it, he just knew he was in one and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to back out of it or not. The word _domestic_ came to mind and Derek scowled at his dinner like it had personally offended him. Stiles must have noticed because he tossed his fork on his plate and pushed back in his chair.

“Okay, no seriously. What was I supposed to have done? Alright? What?” he asked. Derek raised an eyebrow at him.

“I don’t know. Anything that wasn’t _that_ would have been good, honestly,” he replied. “But fine, you did it. Move on.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “That would be nice, yeah. _Can you_?”

Derek couldn’t quite believe the kid was that stupid. He didn’t say anything. Stiles didn’t like that answer.

“You aren’t listening, Derek. _Dead_ , okay? I’m _gonna_ be dead. I had to do _something_ ,” he pointed out. “Unless I’m not supposed to now? Just supposed to let her take over?”

That got Derek’s attention and he looked up at Stiles sharply, the flare of anger on his face. Stiles still pushed. “What? It’d solve your problems, wouldn’t it? _She’s_ not seventeen, she knows what she’s doing, and obviously you know her _really_ well.”

“What do you want, Stiles? I’m supposed to say _it’s okay, you didn’t mean it, move on_ \- oh wait, did that already,” returned Derek. “I don’t know how to fix it either, but you don’t want to go see Deaton _because_ he might know. So I guess I come out ahead on that, too.”

Stiles shook his head, expressive features narrowed and annoyed as he stabbed at his food again. "I dunno. I don't know if you lose or win if she gets her way."

Derek scoffed, shook his head and stared at Stiles. If that was the problem, he could set the record straight easy enough. "I'm done with Blake and have been for months. Just because you _think_ something's real doesn't mean it is. So far _mine_ don't turn out real. Believe it or not, you get over it."

“Okay, first, don’t say her freakin’ name or she’s gonna show up and kick me out again,” Stiles said, growly. "And second... _Ouch_. Thanks for _that_."

"I can make it worse," said Derek, honest and giving warning. He was testing and it wasn't fair but it was right there in front of him. And Stiles started it. He waved between them. "You want more out of this than I'm gonna give. And it’s not because you’re _seventeen_. It’s because - How do you know this isn't just how you take to being pack? It _happens_. I got this from _Erica_..."

The blunt, unexpected shift in topics from Jennifer to Stiles left Stiles slack-jawed and blinking. He had to try finding his voice a couple of times before he landed on workable words. "Gee. Not sure. Maybe because they scrubbed me from the pack? Just for starters," said Stiles.

Derek shook his head. "They can't do that. It's not up to them. Pack finds _you_ , remember?"

Stiles waved toward the door he had passed out in front of almost a week earlier. "They spent two days doing it. I felt every freakin' minute, alright? Still feeling it," he said. “So pack can do its thing and that’s great, but the stupid Druids figured out how to _kick pack’s ass_.”

"How?” asked Derek. He was frustrated and defensive and he wasn’t sure if it was in defense of Stiles or pack. “Setting you on- in a spell can't change the rest of us."

Stiles stared at him in silence for what felt like ages, very unnaturally still in his apparent disbelief. "Come on, Derek. Really? You're going to do this?"

"Yes, because _you_ can't be taken from pack." And there it was for Derek; Stiles had brought him back online as an alpha and he knew it. He had given up when Cora got sick, wrote it off and couldn’t scrounge it back together and was fine with that. Now, Derek was invested because Stiles was invested and it wouldn’t be right without him in it. He had tried that before and it didn’t end well for anyone.

Stiles leaned his arms on the table over his plate, making sure Derek was looking at him. "Fine, then where am I? Right now. Close your eyes, tell me where I am. Scott can tell where Isaac and Allison and Cora are, any minute. Can you tell where your pack is?"

"Yes." Derek didn’t bother to close his eyes. He _knew_ where he would go to find the twins and Danny and Lydia, but they weren’t who he was worried about just then.

Stiles waited impatiently. "And me? If you weren't looking at me?"

Derek stared at him, expression moving from frustrated to mildly alarmed. Stiles nodded.

"You couldn't track me before either. I'm _not_ pack. I can't even tell you guys are there anymore. But I could before. For a _month_ , I knew. Maybe I couldn't find you but I at least knew you existed and that things were okay, wherever you were. Now? For all I know, Lydia's fighting aliens in Vegas or something, mortal peril abounds, while I'm sitting here having us a _wild_ pity-party," he said. He paused and his attention wandered away, unable to stay focused on Derek and talk at the same time. Derek frowned at him. Stiles shook his head.

“The thing this morning? I figured the pack could keep me safe. I put _all_ I had into that, man. _Every_ -thing. And it didn’t work. I’m just _out_ ,” he said. “So I’m not following you around because _Alpha_ with a capital A. It’s more like... _Derek_ , capital D. Yeah, _I’m_ no prince today... I screwed up and I dunno how many times I have to tell you I’m sorry. But there’s a lot of other words out there that start with _D_ right now, I can tell you that.”

Unable to look at him just then, but not wanting to let Stiles out of his sight either, Derek’s gaze dropped to the fork Stiles fidgeted with. Then he realized it wasn’t fidgeting, it was shaking. Stiles dropped the fork and shoved his hands in his pockets under the table. Derek looked up at him then, frowned and shook his head.

“I know what losing pack feels like, Stiles. You’re _still_ pack because I don’t feel _that_ ,” said Derek. Stiles shrugged it off.

“ _So-what_ if I do then? I’m sitting right here, you can see me. But I’m down... everybody. I had them and now they’re gone and you think I don’t _feel_ that? Just because you, what, don’t miss me?”

Something dangerously close to a grin tugged at Derek’s lips. “How? You won’t go away.”

Stiles gave him a sarcastically not-amused face and raised a hand up from under the table long enough to flip him off. But they both had a point, joking or not. Derek lost his appetite much earlier and got tired of shoving his food around to hide it. Quiet settled around them again, steam still escaped Stiles ears, and _Derek_ started to fidget for once. He didn’t know how to fix it. He stood up and grabbed his plate, nodded toward Stiles’. “You done?”

Stiles scoffed and nodded, not missing the declared end of their conversation. He nearly did miss Derek move around the table to tug his chair back away from it. Stiles looked up at him, eyes narrowed distrustfully. Derek stared back at him, leaned between the two chairs to be in Stiles’ space. “Okay. So maybe we were _both_ wrong. Moving on?”

 

***

 

The Stilinski house hadn’t been so silent in weeks. Melissa and Casey sat in the kitchen, the both of them shoving food around on their plates without much appetite. Scott’s pack had taken over Melissa’s house because word had gotten around quickly that Stiles had pissed off Melissa. And she wasn’t quite over it enough not to snap. No one wanted to be around her when she was likely to take a bat to Derek or any other wolf who triggered her, even if she was still in and out of a sling from her last fight with a werewolf. Casey had hidden the bat, but he still knew where it was and better than that, he could shoot faster than she could swing. All because Stiles had never come so close to dying and the two parents were spectacularly pissed off that he had almost done it to _himself_.  That part wasn’t common knowledge yet and would never get passed around if the parents had any say in the secret-keeping or their anger would reach intergalactic levels.

The other important oddity of the evening was that the Stilinski house was a ghost town, that may or may not also still be inhabited by a Druid. For the first time in almost a week, Casey couldn’t actually tell. Stiles had ignored their call to announce dinner, hadn’t made any noise at all for hours. The norm for determining Druid-activity was the sound of an argument, or pacing, or things falling because Stiles was doing really badly at anything requiring balance or detail work. The kid tried to hide it but Casey paid attention; he noticed when Stiles couldn’t stop his hands from shaking so he shoved them in his pockets, or he put down his fork and turned Mac and Cheese into finger food. Stiles could be walking down the stairs and then suddenly stop, frozen, like he couldn’t get his legs to follow orders anymore. He stomped more than usual upstairs, like he had to _think_ about just crossing the room.

Casey sighed and looked up at Mel. “He’s not up there,” he announced. “He better be at Derek’s.”

Mel bit her lip on agreeing. “No, maybe he could be here. He had a hard day - because he’s an idiot and he knows I’m going to kill him for this every day for the rest of his very long life - so maybe he’s just... asleep.”

The sheriff tilted his head and stared at her, expression grim. “Really, Mel?”

The woman made a face at the table. “I think we need to figure out how to block that window. It’s really not safe.”

Stilinski nodded but then caught himself as he realized what they were doing.

“What? I’m supposed to lock my kid in his room now?” he asked out loud. “He’s seventeen. And I can’t let him have a window.”

Melissa caught on and her eyes widened in surprise. “No, I just meant-”

“No, I get it, Mel,” said Casey. He sighed. “That’s my point. _That’s_ the problem.”

“I thought the problem was that your kid is a willful, obnoxious smart-ass too actually-smart for his own good and plenty dangerous about it.”

“It is- No, I mean he is.” Stilinski scrubbed at his face and then leaned an elbow on the table to prop it against. “But... _he is_. That’s him. And I’m sitting here seriously considering blocking off windows trying to stop him from that? If it’s not this, it’s something else. Not the window, then it’ll be the Jeep when we get it back. That’s just... that’s Stiles. He’s always been this way. He’s going to _try_. It won’t change.”

“Oh.” Melissa stared back at him, suddenly feeling quite miserable. “And we just grounded him for it.”

“We put him on _lockdown_ after _Tahoe_ and haven’t let him out of it since,” corrected Stilinski. He shook his head and gave a huff of unamused laughter. “We started all of this because we couldn’t keep tabs on our kids. We couldn’t keep Scott from being a werewolf who could, for all we knew, go crazy and kill every one of us on a full moon. We can’t ground a werewolf. But we can be a _pack_ , be bigger than a werewolf, solve _all the problems..._ ”

“Shit,” said Mel. “We took it out on Stiles.”

The sheriff looked down at the table then. “Because he’s the only one who wasn’t a wolf. Or a hunter. Or a...”

“Banshee,” added Melissa and Casey echoed her. He looked up at her again, frowning.

“Did we just reverse- _Breakfast Club_ my kid?”

Mel scrunched her nose and nodded.

 

***

 

The evening hadn’t been a total loss for Stiles. Derek was back on better-than-speaking terms with him, and he let him share his space. As it turned out, post-trauma apology-sex was not actually a menu-option to overprotective werewolves far too aware of, well, _everything_. Not even to third base. Stiles was pretty sure Derek turning him down was half meant as a reminder that they had _both_ been _grounded_ and it was Stiles' fault. His only triumph was to get Derek to hide under the blankets with him. He was strangely okay with the trade-off.

Stiles was grounded and supposed to be in his own bed, thinking about everything he had done wrong to everyone who loved him. With the bonus of "magic doesn't solve anything" probably in there, too. Instead he was thinking all those things in Derek's bed, because a security-blanket was better for pondering such heavy topics from safely underneath. And when his well-armed father showed up with _his_ pack to declare _war_ on Derek's pack because Stiles had changed the _location_ of the grounding, Stiles would point that out. He was still grounded, still thinking very seriously about what he had done, and how it had gone wrong. He just needed an overprotective guard-dog to keep the world away while he did it.

They made it to three am without anybody beating down the front door looking for them. Stiles was awake, still unnaturally hyped despite how tired he was, and Derek was actually asleep. On some level, Stiles knew the man had to sleep and not just pass out from head trauma after fights. It was just something Stiles hadn't _seen_ before. Derek was always on watch, not sleeping. And he probably put way too much thought into it, and read way too much into it that Derek would actually _sleep_ with him, - on him, technically,- especially after the day Stiles had just put him through.

Stiles managed to sneak out of the room without waking Derek. He just wasn't quite that lucky coming back in because he tripped on somebody's shoes and klutzed his way through the dark after that. Derek lay on his stomach, one eye open to watch him and silently laugh at him and Stiles climbed up in the bed and collapsed on him in retaliation. Derek didn't complain about being pinned and seemed to fall back to sleep despite Stiles' sprawl in his space. Stiles angled half off the bed, his head on the back of Derek's shoulder and his arm across his ribs.

The outside light from the windows threw Derek's tattoo into sharp contrast against Stiles' road-rash covered arm just below it. Stiles startled, suddenly for the first time bothering to think about the tattoo he had seen a hundred times before. It was one of the first things researched in the All-Things-Derek project a month earlier. He shifted to stare at it more comfortably, tracing it with his fingers as his mind worked at something that was bothering him.

"Hey... D'you know what this means?" Stiles asked. Derek huffed into the pillow, possibly offended.

"Yes."

"Why'd you get it?" Stiles asked. He could hide behind his curiosity to learn All Things Derek and not get growled at for being annoying at 3am. Derek shifted, looked out at the windows rather than toward Stiles to try to sleep again.

"Pack...” There was a hesitation and then a reluctant grumble. “The fire."

Stiles went quiet again at the sudden return of what he had messed up already. It wouldn’t last long, but he was contrite and skittish on the topic of anything flammable now.

"D'you know what it meant to the Celts?"

"Probably," said Derek. He sighed. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me about it."

Stiles grinned slightly and settled back, leaned on his own elbow. "There’s a few different - From what I could tell, it's kinda like a crossroads symbol. The mortal world meets the spirit world and the underworld."

Derek nodded, half asleep. Stiles still thoughtfully stared at his back and hardly noticed. "It's a symbol of reincarnation."

Derek tensed and looked over at Stiles again. He rolled up on to his elbows, mostly awake and paying attention now. Stiles gave him a worried, half-smile.

"What if I was wrong, and- I mean, I know I was _wrong_ , but, just - what if it wasn't the pack that didn't let go?" he asked quietly. “What if you really could fix it?”

Derek blinked back at him, processing. He nodded.

"We talk to Deaton this time," said Derek finally. Stiles nodded, reluctant but recognizing he was beyond his depth with it all finally. He let Derek tug him close and tucked into his neck. Derek kissed his jaw and kept Stiles’ shoulder and side under his own, protective but just as much possessive.

 

***


	16. Chapter 16

Derek woke up early. Something was wrong. But the loft was quiet, Stiles was still asleep next to him. The feeling in his gut didn't make sense. He slapped at the side table, looking for his phone. Checked the time. Exactly 24 hours earlier, Stiles had called and ruined his week. If that one day had been enough to permanently change his routine, Derek would consider killing Stiles on principle. He decided to go back to sleep instead. Curling on to his side, Derek reached to tuck an arm over Stiles' chest.

Suddenly Derek was wide awake.

Stiles was cold. Unnaturally cold. He was still breathing, but Derek could only be certain of that because he felt the thready heartbeat under his forearm.

"Stiles? Wake up," he said. He flattened his palm and shook the teen. Derek raised his voice to try to get through. "Now. Stiles, wake up!"

Nothing. No response. No flutter of the eyes, no change in the shallow, inaudible breathing. Derek shoved the blankets back and knelt over him. The last time Stiles had gone under this badly, he responded very clearly to Derek being mad. This time, an angry Derek kneeling over him didn't ping on the radar at all. Either Stiles was really far under this time, or he wasn't in there at all.

Derek scrambled for his cellphone and called Talia. They needed Deaton.

“Why is Stiles with _you_?” was the first thing Talia actually heard from what Derek tried to tell her. She knew as well as he did that Stiles had been grounded. Derek balked. That was not what she should be worried about.

“Because he’s _Stiles_?” he blurted, a little frazzled. “Because people told him not to do something so he did it? Can we move on to the fact that he’s _in a coma now_?”

“What?”

“It’s happened before. This is from what he did yesterday. He needs Deaton. _Now_.”

Talia promised to call him back and hung up without Derek getting in another word. He was stuck, alone, without a clue how to help Stiles. Derek got him dressed and bundled, trying to warm him up again. Within five minutes, Stiles was wrapped in two blankets and set across the couch. Derek sat on the edge of it with his fingers at the teen’s throat constantly to check for a heartbeat while he waited for a phone call.

Talia didn’t call. She showed up at his door and let herself in. “How is he?”

“Hasn’t changed,” said Derek. “The last time, he would respond to me. This time, there’s nothing. I think it’s Jennifer. She’s got him.”

Talia knelt next to Stiles and held a hand near his mouth and nose to be sure he was still breathing. Neither one of them could recognize the usual sound of a heartbeat from the bundled up Stiles. Talia was distracted when she glanced at Derek in silent demand for more information.

“Before I fell asleep, he was thinking out loud. He thinks they scrubbed the pack out, but not...” There was no way to say it without sounding like a sappy idiot, but Derek managed to try because he was talking to his mom. She had known that about him since he was a kid anyway. “He thinks the pack bond that he was relying on yesterday was actually _me_. I marked him and I didn’t know, and they couldn’t get that instinctive energy out of him with the purification rites. He wanted to try again, but with me to help, and he promised to go to Deaton. _If_ he was right, in any of it, then he basically threatened her out loud and Jennifer went after him as soon as he fell asleep.”

“And,” said Talia. “He’s probably been doing this for three days. He said he was learning from her. This is what she’s been doing. She’s been _taking_ from him, not teaching.” Talia stood and pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. Derek took that to mean they were leaving and he collected Stiles from the couch to follow her out the door. On the way to the car, Talia passed along the new information to Deaton. Derek and Stiles curled up on the middle row of seats and Talia hesitated before she closed them in.

“He said he’ll meet us at the tree,” she said, catching Derek’s eye. “He said we’ll have to do it again.”

Derek’s first instinct was hard refusal, remembering all of Stiles’ fears about devious Druids out to get him, and currently holding the damaged proof in his arms. That was why Talia was warning him, giving him a chance to get it out of his system by the time they had to do what needed to be done. Derek somehow swallowed it back and nodded. His family had trusted Deaton too long for him to steer them wrong now.

“Whatever it takes,” he said.

 

***

 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise to see Melissa, Scott and Stilinski already waiting at the parking area outside the preserve. Derek had to tramp down on a growl when the sheriff reached into the back of the SUV to help get Stiles out.

“Shit,” muttered Stilinski as he curled his blanket-wrapped son to his chest just beyond the doors. “He’s lost weight.”

Derek nodded and climbed out. He tried to take Stiles back and the sheriff made a dismissive face, silently ordering him out of his way.

“Werewolf!” Derek was impatient and losing his ability for coherent, complete sentences. “Let me _carry_ him.”

The sheriff yielded to the logic of superhuman strength and night-vision in the predawn winter morning. They tracked Deaton to the root cellar and very carefully made their way down. Scott was frantically helping him set things in whatever order he was told. Everything somehow looked different than it had the day before, like the emissary had installed skylights in the root cellar corners to replace the candles they had worn down. It was brighter and not so threatening. Deaton waved Derek over and they set Stiles on the work table. Derek leaned his hands on the table, crowding Stiles’ space at his shoulders as Deaton checked for signs of life and whatever Druids had to check for.

“I don’t think he can do that again,” said Derek. He tried not to growl about it. Deaton shook his head.

“Of course not. _Darach_ , Derek. What Stiles did yesterday was dark magic. It was not meant to heal anything,” said Deaton. Derek felt an odd sense of relief.

“So you have something in your bag of tricks that will fix this, right?” Casey asked. Deaton grimaced.

“We have to try getting her out. She’s poisoning him,” he said.

Derek did growl that time. “But you just said he can’t do it again!”

“You didn’t hear me,” said Deaton calmly. He carried on seeing to Stiles; Derek wanted to swat him away but didn’t. “I said he can’t repeat what he put himself through yesterday. I didn’t say that’s how we’ll draw her out.”

 

***

 

The cellar that had been nearly a graveyard two months ago now looked like a rough-hewn basement with a tree in the middle of one wall. It was unreal. Stilinski leaned on the table, guarding his son while still looking around at the room. His kid had spent two days here. No wonder everything was screwed up in Stiles’ head. Melissa lurked near him, nervous. As Deaton and Talia moved around the room, they hovered near Stiles with Derek. Scott pinged back and forth, trying to figure out how to be useful without getting in the way. Deaton caught Melissa staring at the Nemeton and frowned.

“It’s just a tree,” he said calmly. “Over the years it has been given power, yes, but that was done by others. The tree is no threat.”

Melissa made a face and shook her head. “I dunno. The tree did some _serious_ damage to Stiles.”

Deaton looked up at her, surprised. “What?”

She waved a hand toward Stiles, uncertain. “He said the tree shredded his back.”

“He didn’t mention-” Deaton started tugging at the layers Derek and Talia had wrapped Stiles in. Stilinski trusted the man was trying to help and reached out to turn Stiles on to his side so that Deaton could see the promised damage. Derek was probably more help than Casey was but at least he felt like he could do _something_. Deaton swore under his breath as he peeled back the bandage once the shirt was tugged out of the way.

“Let him down,” he said quietly. The emissary moved over to the tree and turned to Talia and Derek. “Where was he? Yesterday.”

Talia pointed out the remains of their ash circle and the place where Stiles had stood. Deaton touched a hand to the tangled roots of the tree that reached into the circle, the expression on his face exceedingly worried. Casey could see the dark stain against the roots. It matched other places around the tree, all dark and different colored in each spot. He started to ask when he noticed Derek startle just ahead of him.

“Blood,” said Derek. “It- he made a sacrifice to the tree.”

“Stiles did?” asked Casey. Deaton nodded, which didn’t make the sheriff feel any better. “Well, what’s _that_ mean?”

“We were down here before,” said Melissa. “Not for two days. But Koz and Chris were hurt... it didn’t do anything to them.”

“We weren’t _in_ the tree,” Casey pointed out.

“But you were closest to it,” said Melissa. She waved meekly toward the tree. “And Alan said it’s just a tree. I’m just... it can’t be as bad as it looks, is all I’m saying. _Sacrifice_ just sounds bad.”

“It could mean anything,” said Deaton calmly. He wasn’t happy but he shrugged. “I’m not a tree. I can’t answer this one. But we’ll find out.”

 

***

 

"Holy god I'm dead- where a- _Hi_..." Stiles stared up at Derek's chin, confused. His voice didn't sound right in his own ears and he was very confused as to where he was. Derek looked down at him, the flare of relief quickly chased out by anger.

"Stiles?" he asked.

"Derek?" returned Stiles. "Where the fu-"

Derek clamped a hand over his mouth before he could finish his question.

"Still him." Derek made the report to someone across Stiles. "He's still not breathing normal though."

Stiles narrowed his eyes up at the chin looming over him. He was distracted quickly when his dad came into view at Derek's right shoulder. The werewolf didn't move his arm and stayed leaned over Stiles protectively. Stiles tried not to swear again.

"Hi..." He tried for his most innocent expression in the face of his father's relief. "Uh... Would somebody mind, I dunno, maybe telling me what the _hell_ I missed?"

As a third face towered over at his other side suddenly, Stiles jerked sideways, away from Derek's protection and knocked into his dad's arms braced on the table.

"You put yourself into a coma," said Deaton.

"Another coma," corrected Derek. "And if you didn't then Jennifer did."

"I'm leaning more toward the latter, seeing that you're awake _now_ ," said Deaton. "Either way, I think it's time we get her out, yes?"

"Hell yes," agreed Stiles. He tried to sit up, feeling too exposed with Deaton in the room. The effort didn't amount to much and he had to let his dad help him sit. Stiles got his first look around and was none too happy to see the root cellar again. He looked to his dad and then Derek, shaking his head.

"No. Nope. I can't do it again. I-" His protest was quieted by his father's nod.

"We know, son. Deaton's not going to do that. He said you can handle this one. And it'll work."

"And this time, I help," said Derek. The set of his jaw said that any arguments on the matter would be met with pack-sanctioned _violence_. Stiles looked to his dad, just to double check.

"He helps, and you try not to die," his dad told him. "I've had about enough of this shit."

Stiles brightened, infinitely pleased that his dad had moved past the fearful grieving stages of dealing with his son's dangerous lifestyle with wolves and had finally broken into the level of _anger_. Progress was _progress_ ; before long, Stilinski would arrive at _acceptance_ and Stiles would never again have to see the " _are you sure you’re okay?_ " face.

 

***

 

Despite the assurances that Deaton's plan was different, Stiles was wary of it for the simple fact that he still had to stand in a mountain ash circle to contain it. That was basically _all_ he had to do, no mud, no shackles, no hanging from beams. After replaying the others' work in his head over and over for days, Deaton's seemed too simple.

"It's not going to work," muttered Stiles, hope faded almost out. Derek looked at him sharply. Stiles could barely stand upright on his own, kept a hand braced to Derek's back just to keep his feet under him.

"Then don't worry about it," said Derek. "Let me deal with it. You just try not to die, like the man said."

Stiles couldn't even round up the energy to mock him and just nodded. Derek changed to a less aggressive stance and Stiles took that as permission to lean on him. Staying upright became a lot easier when Derek turned enough to get an arm around him and hugged Stiles to his side. He stayed there while Deaton finished up whatever he was making, and while he set the spell in motion, and when the ash line was closed around them. Stiles' heart rate must have spiked because Derek looked over at him.

"You're okay," he said quietly. Stiles just nodded. It didn't quite convince him, but he tried. He couldn't concentrate anymore and kept losing focus, like a blackout was in his very near future. Derek turned to face Stiles and wrapped him in a non-negotiable hug, right there in public, their bodies lined up snug. Stiles was about to point out the sheriff and his gun standing less than ten feet away when he felt the spell kick in.

It was like standing in a wind tunnel, at the center of a tornado, with dirt and ash from the ground blending in with the handcrafted mix Deaton had tossed in on them. Stiles coughed and ducked his head to Derek's, trying to shield their faces with his arms.

Then everything in the air around them lit up. Swirling dust became swirling white flame. It landed on them and didn't burn. It just moved, from walls to particles and blinding everyone. Stiles felt the burning air in his throat, flirting around on not-fire-proof insides and his coughing got worse. He cinged but never burnt.

Derek kept his hold on him, not coughing, not apparently surprised at all. In the middle of whatever magical cure spell Deaton had managed to find for them, Derek nudged at Stiles' cheek and pulled back just enough to tease for a kiss. Making out in the middle of that particular root cellar had never been high on Stiles' to-do list, but he was too distracted to argue when it was Derek who suggested it. The new purging spell carried on around them in waves, leaving them hidden in their own - strange - little world.

Even with Derek's help and attention, Stiles started to feel like he was going to pass out again. He pulled back to cough and Derek stayed with him. The sensation that he was going to black out suddenly stopped and Stiles opened his eyes again as he finally figured out what was going on. And he didn't approve. Derek pulled back and tucked around him, a tight hug to keep him still as the wind inside the mountain ash circle died out. He didn't let Stiles shove him away.

"What the hell did you do?" asked Stiles. He wanted to yell but it came out barely more than a whisper.

"What we should have done in the first place," said Derek. "She's out. I'll take care of it."

Stiles felt stupid for wanting to argue, it wasn't like he wanted her back. "No." was all he managed. Derek pressed his face to his neck.

"Would you just be quiet?"

 

***

 

They hadn’t actually gotten rid of Jennifer. Deaton could heal a poison, remove a curse to help Stiles, but anything else would have been dangerous and not at all in his division. Stiles had worn himself down too far and wouldn’t have been able to handle it. So Jennifer was _relocated_ , safely; her new lock-box a werewolf some hundred times stronger than Stiles and much more difficult to damage. And Derek was determined to leave her there until he could have a few words with her.

“When I see her, we can do whatever we need to in order to get rid of her. But we wait until we know it worked,” he said.

“Yeah but what if it takes another month for her to show her face?” argued Stiles. He sat on the table with Scott, soaking up the werewolf space-heater waves while wrapped in the blankets from Derek’s. He was still a long way from being able to walk in a straight line, and still pissed off that he had been tricked.

“Then it takes a month,” said Derek. He shrugged. “We know what not to do this time, and it’ll take a lot longer for her to do any kind of damage to me.”

“And he’s not going to make a deal with the devil and _lie_ about it,” added Stilinski dryly. Stiles rolled his eyes hard enough he hit his head on Scott’s shoulder.

“Yeah, whatever. _You_ try having daily conversations with a dead psychopath in your head and see how sane you feel at the end of it,” he muttered. Stilinski shrugged and thumbed their attention back toward Derek.

“I don’t need to. Sounds like he’s going to do that,” he said, apparently perfectly at ease with the idea.

“Which I did _not_ okay. At all,” cut in Stiles. “That’s, like, a total violation. You don’t take stuff from people’s heads like that. That’s trespassing and-”

“She wasn’t in your head, so there was no confidentiality breach,” said Derek. “Knock it off.”

Stiles shut his mouth, still glaring at Derek over the edge of the blanket. Scott put a hand on Stiles’ forehead and tried to help with the headache that was adding to Stiles’ grouch mood and Stiles shrugged free like it stung him. Scott looked to Derek, alarmed.

“That’s supposed to have been fixed...” he began. Stiles shrugged and shivered in his blankets.

“S’fine. Just creepy when it’s happening right in front of your eyes, man.” There was an almost audible sigh of relief around the cave, which only made Stiles grumpier. Scott ruffled his hair, and when Stiles swatted at him, he put both hands on Stiles’ head to really mess up what was already a mess. _And now with the marking_ , thought Stiles, now that they knew the side effects of their usual rough-housing. Stiles gave up and distracted himself by starting an argument about the shoes no one had brought for him to hike back to the cars.

“Does it matter at all that I say _no more carrying me_?” he asked. Scott and Derek both shrugged, the two most likely to have to share the workload completely unconcerned by Stiles’ sudden-onset of pride.

Stiles hung his head. As the others moved to pack up and clear their way out of the cellar, Derek caught at Stiles’ blanket-buried feet to pull him toward the edge of the table. Stiles kicked at him halfheartedly and moved on his own. He sat at the edge and caught the werewolf in a glaring match while he was slightly taller for once.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he said for the hundredth time in ten minutes. And he meant it. He just couldn’t get _over_ it. Derek shrugged.

“You’re welcome to try and get her back if it bugs you all this damn much, but we already know it’s not going to work,” said Derek. Stiles almost took the offer as a serious invitation for reclaiming a psychopathic Druid. Then the quiet words fully sunk in and he grinned for the first time in ages. He felt his eyes flash, the tiny blue-shift confirmed by the look on Derek’s face. Derek’s lips twitched, the only crack in his resolve to play the innocent straight-man in their comic-relief duo. Stiles pounced on his neck and caught him in a full-on, public display of absolutely heartfelt affection.

“God, not again!” Scott almost fell off the other end of the table. Stiles was too busy to notice and Derek really didn’t care.

 

***


	17. Chapter 17

It took two days before Jennifer showed up again. He was at home, standing at his own desk, lurking over Stiles’ shoulder when Derek felt the weird kick at the back of his ribs. He was mid-word in an attempt to bribe Stiles into actually doing the homework he had promised to get done and the wolf stopped, looked around for the trouble his instinct said had just walked into his den.

“What?” asked Stiles. He looked around, probably not even thinking about Jennifer Blake. Stiles didn’t see her standing at the edge of the couch like Derek could. Plain as day, real as anything, looking just as she had before everything had gone to hell for all of them months earlier. She was just watching them, unreadable. For a minute, all Derek could do was stare back. Until he saw it for himself, he hadn’t realized how little credit he had given Stiles for living with that kind of presence for so long. It wasn’t natural and it hurt his senses.

“You weren’t supposed to get involved,” Jennifer said finally. “If it had gone how we planned, you wouldn’t have even known.”

“I would have known.” Derek set a hand to Stiles’ shoulder to keep him in his chair and quiet, a possessive and reassuring distraction for himself at the quiet shock of hearing Jennifer’s timid voice again.

“And the bitch is back...” Stiles must have figured it out because he stopped trying to turn around and instead leaned his shoulder to Derek’s side in support.

Speaking to the shade of Jennifer, Derek said, "And now you can deal with me instead of a kid."

The woman gave a short laugh, bitter jealousy coloring the quiet tone. She looked from Stiles to Derek in disbelief. "Really, Derek? You're going to try to take the moral high ground on _the boy_? Oh, I don't think so..."

Refusing to rise to the bait, Derek raised his voice to talk over her. "According to Deaton, you can either go back where you came from, so that you can help restore and balance the Nemeton. Or we scrub you out and you disappear. I wanted to give you the choice. How do you want to play this?"

"Or _you_ put me back where you _found_ me,” said Jennifer. She took a step closer. Stiles looked up at Derek, concerned as Derek leaned a little heavier on him. Derek shook his head against Stiles speaking up and made himself listen to the woman’s counter-offer.

“We both get what we want. You keep your precious Stiles. I _live_. A Druid on _your_ side, Derek. It's perfect..."

Her solution was as unappealing as it was offensive and Derek tensed. "I only _want_ one of those things. And it's not _you_."

"You liked having both. I know what I saw," said Jennifer. She was trying to poke at him through Stiles again. Derek growled and pulled out the chair beside Stiles to sit down in. She was stuck inside him, at his core, but she knew by now as well as he did that she couldn’t hurt either one of them from there. He would ignore her until they got her out. And he was making _that_ phone call as soon as she disappeared again.

"Conversation over,” he told her. “You're out."

It was nice to hear her panic, a little distracting to feel it. Jennifer wrapped her arms around herself then and took a step closer in apologetic appeal. "No! Give me back to the Nemeton."

Derek glowered at the textbook open on the desk in front of Stiles. He drew it out, thinking it over.

"Fine,” he said after a long silence. “Later. I'm busy."

Stiles gave him a cautious glance. Derek shook his head to keep away the questions. He cleared his throat and jerked his chin toward the book. “Finish that in the next hour and you can stay here tonight,” he said. “It’s apparently my turn for a babysitter.”

The very heavily hidden request was met by worry, however lightened it was by the promise of a sleepover. Stiles grinned at him, apparently sensing his talent for all things inappropriate could come in handy just then.

“Well, I’ve been fighting you on this for an hour already, so that hardly seems reasonable,” he said with his usual amount of smart-ass. “If I finish it in a half hour or less, can the babysitter finally make it around third base?”

Derek raised an eyebrow at him, trying very hard not to grin back. “If you finish it in a half hour or less, the babysitter won’t have to sleep on the _couch_.”

 

***

 

Life had settled into a kind of quiet peace for Talia. Derek handled the extra soul much easier than Stiles could, which only made Talia proud and relieved. She had taught Derek to rely on his wolf the year her son turned thirteen; he didn't always know the _right_ thing to do, but he always knew what _he_ _wanted_ to do. He knew himself, knew what he was capable of, and he could trust his wolf side implicitly. That would be enough to protect Derek from the hazards of storing foreign energy from a dark Druid. Derek could protect himself. The crisis of the past week and a half had passed.

Talia was able to think about other things again, less focused on the dangers that threatened the family of her pack. She could worry about old business again. Like finding something to hold over Gerard’s head to find out where the rest of the Hutchinsons had disappeared to. Stilinski snuck her what he could of the case against the Hutchinsons and Talia had spent two nights at her kitchen table looking through Kyle McCall's notes for things he had missed. It was breaking the rules, but Talia had been a lawyer, she could represent herself and manipulate the loopholes. And she was slowly deciding that she would go after her licensing again. It wasn't going back to her old life; it was making something from the new one.

Around 9pm, Talia stopped reviewing one of Kyle's maps from her folder. Something nagged at her. She gnawed at the end of a pen, distracted, confused, and not sure why. She finally stood up from the table and went to check on Cora. She found her daughter in her room, doing her own homework. Her cell phone was out in front of her next to the books and the screen said Scott was on speakerphone. Talia knocked on the wall by the door to interrupt the quiet. Cora looked up, relaxed and calm and not surprised. She tugged the phone closer.

"Scott, shut up a minute," she said. The teen on the other end let out a laugh but stayed quiet. Talia's lips twisted up in a small grin. Cora mirrored it.

"Sorry for interrupting," said Talia. "I was just checking up. Everything okay?"

Cora nodded and shrugged. "Yeah, I'm good. Well, except homework, but..."

Talia nodded toward the phone. "What about him and his mom?"

"Good, I think?" said Cora.

"Yeah, good," said Scott from the cell phone. "Mom and _Koz_ are out, but they were fine before they left."

“Either of you heard from Derek?” asked Talia. “Or Stiles?” Cora frowned at her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. Talia shook her head.

“No, I’m just... checking up.”

“Right,” said Cora. Her frown said she wasn’t buying it, but Talia didn’t know how to explain. Scott reported that he had dropped Stiles off at Derek’s that afternoon.

“We were going to go over after I got this done, but Stiles kinda uninvited us an hour ago and I don’t wanna know,” said Cora. Talia smirked.

“ _That_ would go a lot quicker if you weren’t on the phone to do it.” She pointed to the homework. Cora shrugged. Talia left the two of them to Cora’s homework and walked back to the kitchen table, to her own self-appointed homework. She saw her phone blinking at her on the table to announce a message. It was Melissa, wanting to check in, make sure everything was okay. That set off every alarm in Talia’s head, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. Melissa’s instincts were good for a non-wolf, and they seemed to be getting nothing but better. Still, Talia had nothing to go on, no reason for the strange feeling in her gut that something was wrong. She slumped into her chair and made herself type out a reply.

_Everything’s fine_.

 

***

 

If he was honest with himself, Chris would admit that waking up with a growing migraine and a bag over his head wasn't a big surprise. He knew he should have expected something. Some retaliation. Even if Gerard was an old, sick man, he wasn't without connections. And he had laid low so long those connections would chomp at the bit to bring him back, no questions asked. The hunters couldn't smell the wolf on him to know any better. Provoking his father with the pack was the stupidest thing Chris had done since the pack was formed.

Bound and bagged, Chris stayed still for long minutes, listening to the sounds around him. He heard footsteps on hollow floors, creaking wood and dripping rain. Knowing his father, Chris could take an easy guess as to where he was. At least it wasn't the tunnels. The old Hale house was falling apart but it was an easier path to the woods, and Chris' personal odds of survival doubled once he hit the preserve. He just had to get out of the house first.

A hand clapped down on Chris' shoulder, stilled his efforts at slipping his binds. Blinded by the black bag over his head, Chris went still and waited.

"He's awake. " The voice was new to Chris, which meant that if Gerard had gone out of state for his help, he was pulling on old favors that Chris didn't know anything about. He definitely didn't know the new players.

"Oh, good." Gerard sounded like he was in a great mood. Chris had learned fear from his father; that tone was enough to bring it back. He listened to shuffling footsteps and then felt the hood drag away from his head. It was dark in the room, aside from two pockets of yellow light from dying flashlights. Gerard was instantly recognizable. Even though he had no need for the help, he leaned on a broadsword like a cane. Chris physically startled when he saw the metal reflect light off the silver edge. Gerard noticed with a smile.

"Do you remember what your precious wolves do to members who leave their pack?" Gerard asked.

"The wolves don't do anything," said Chris. He saw the threat, but there was little he could do about it sitting tied in a chair against the stair railing. Chris was outnumbered and outgunned and staring down his father. "The wolves just leave. It's _us_ who hunt the omegas."

"Us?" echoed Gerard. "But you have a pack. You're one of them. And if you're one of them, you can't be one of us. No hunter would consort with-"

"Mark Hutchinson: A wolf. A hunter. His brother: A hunter. My sister: A hunter. All of them consorted with wolves, profited from them," said Chris. He glared up at his father. "Brian Hutchinson was your partner before he died. And you ran the show."

"I still do," said Gerard.

"You're a wolf," said Chris, loud enough that there was no mistaking it. "A sick one who will never heal. D'you remember what _hunters_ do to _those_ wolves?"

"I'm finishing business before I go anywhere," said Gerard. He was angry now as the hunters around him grew restless and confused. Gerard pointed the heavy sword at Chris. "You're the problem. An alliance with the Hales-"

Chris interrupted, frustrated and nearly shouting. "Every hunter has an alliance with _something_. We don't catch everything! Our alliance with the Hales started over thirty years ago and lasted until you broke it six years ago. I'm just trying to restore that."

Gerard looked like he might blow a fuse. " _Enough_!"

"Shut up!" One of the hunters interrupted the family drama they hadn't planned on witnessing that night. He pointed at Chris. "One problem at a time and right now, that's you."

"Look, whatever he told you, he doesn't know..."

"He told me where to find you," said the hunter. "So far his information is pretty accurate."

"What the hell did I do to you people?" Chris was amused, just because that was the only thing left. He knew what came next. He wouldn't show them fear. And his refusal only riled them more.

"You don't turn on your own and get away with it, Chris."

Someone behind him cut the ropes along the chair to let Chris stand. It was a surprise, but not much of an advantage when he was surrounded by seven full grown men used to fighting things a lot bigger than Chris. Still, Chris would take what he could get. He hardly had time to shake himself out of the ropes when he felt the sharp pain in his shoulder that sent him stumbling back against the chair and the stair bannister behind it. There was a noise and something hit his boots so he looked down. He had been stabbed in the back with his own knife. Thankfully it was dark and he wasn’t dealing with the best hunters he had ever met, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It just hurt like one helluva bitch.

"The traitor's reward. Hope it was worth it," said the hunter who stood behind him. Chris dodged for the knife on his uninjured side and rolled to put his back to a wall instead. This was not his favorite way to start a fight.

 

***


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I apologize for this right-freaking-now...
> 
> \------

There was still no food in Derek’s house. Apparently Peter couldn’t be bothered to shop any more than the rest of them could lately. Which meant that dinner was _late_ and _out_. And Derek stole the keys to his uncle’s car, which bothered Stiles more than a little because he was better than sixty percent certain the car was stolen to begin with. Derek’s raised eyebrows and grim shrug did nothing to set Stiles any more at ease about the possibility. He used the potential arrest as fuel for his argument that they should go to a burger joint, because if they were going to be arrested in a stolen vehicle, he at least wanted to enjoy his last meal of freedom.

“Would you rather walk?” said Derek.

“Hell no. No walking with druid-bitches around. Just no,” said Stiles. He shook his head and ignored Derek’s smirk. “Just go to Joe’s. I know the cook, it’ll work out.”

“That’s across town.” Derek stared at Stiles like the kid had lost a few screws and Stiles made sure that the look he got back only confirmed it. He wanted his damn burger.

“So?”

“For a burger and fries? We can go anywhere for that junk.”

“But they’ve got this bacon burger that I swear on everything holy comes about this big,” said Stiles. He held his hands about eight inches apart in illustration. “I want that for my last meal this side of the Big House.”

Derek narrowed his eyes at him. “Lie.”

“Okay, fine!” Stiles waved his hands to move past the small detail that he had been caught in another lie. “I’m trying to piss somebody off. Just go.”

“Who?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. He refused to say her name but Derek was being dense. “Well, see, there was this dark druid, and she kinda tried to take over my body for awhile? And it really, really pissed her off when I put poison in the body she was trying to highjack. And her definition of poison? Bacon.”

“Seriously?” asked Derek. His eyebrows said he hadn’t expected that, somehow, in his week of eavesdropping on Stiles’ one-sided conversations. “That’s what you two argued about? Bacon?”

“And anything fried,” said Stiles. He nodded, waved vaguely between them. “And a lot of other things. But this should totally not surprise you. What are _we_ arguing about _right now_?”

“Bacon burgers it is then,” said Derek. He cracked a grin as he stared out the windshield at the rainy road. He pointed the car for the Stilinski’s side of town and they drove in an idle sort of quiet, Stiles feeling strangely buzzy and warm and benevolent toward the world in general. He didn’t have a hitchhiker, he was _Derek’s_ babysitter for a change, and for the first time in a week he didn’t feel the world’s worst sunburn peeling at his face. And he was getting a bacon burger.  Things weren’t so bad just then.

Something caught his attention and he pointed Derek toward the parking lot in front of Deaton’s tucked-away vet office off the road ahead. “That’s Deaton’s car. Why’s he still there.”

“I didn’t call him yet,” said Derek. He frowned and Stiles backhanded his shoulder, smirking. They had called Stiles’ dad to notify him that Stiles wasn’t going to be home, and Scott to tell him Stiles didn’t need a ride home after all. But there had been some _distraction_ shortly thereafter.  Stiles counted that as a win for his ego _and_ sexual prowess that he could knock a werewolf off a potentially life-saving course of action so simple as making a phone call, without even making it into the man’s pants. Derek wouldn’t let himself do anything but glare at Stiles for that and he pulled into the parking lot.

“Burgers will have to wait a few minutes then,” he said. The taunt was a double-edge. First, because Stiles was hungry, and second because Stiles was still very uptight about anything druidic. Including the Hale pack’s former emissary.

“Hale! You suck!” Stiles called through the window as Derek trotted through the light rain to get to the door. He had almost made up his mind to stay in the car but his conscience got the better of him as Deaton showed up to unlock the lobby door for Derek. Stiles was still afraid of him; _terrified_ would not actually be an overstatement. And he was starting to feel really bad about that, now that he had his own life back.

Deaton wasn’t an evil druid, he was Talia’s emissary (and friend) and Scott’s boss (and friend) and he had helped them out too many times for Stiles to be able to forget that. But it was still... weird. Everything that had gone wrong in the past two weeks had been because of druids, or darachs whichever they really were, and that reflected back on Deaton as the resident druid. Who Stiles had personally run to time and time again for help with Scott. Because he trusted Deaton, even if the guy had his sneaky, creepy moments sometimes. He knew stuff. That was all _before_ Stiles had learned just what Druids were _capable_ of, but he had to get back there somehow.

Stiles let out a frustrated, subdued yell and dove from the car just to make himself do something other than stress out about another druid. He tugged his hood over his head and hurried into the lobby of the veterinarian's office just as the door swung closed behind Derek. Deaton and Derek both looked at Stiles in open surprise. A slow smirk hit Derek’s face and Stiles scowled at him; the jerk was proud and all Stiles had to do was walk into the vet’s office. Derek Hale wasn’t supposed to be _that_ easy.

“Well, I have to admit this is a surprise,” said Deaton. His smile wasn’t as bright as the usual greeting, but he at least wasn’t kicking Stiles out the door. Derek looked to him expectantly, one eyebrow raised and the faint grin still on his face. Stiles huffed and raised a hand to point the vet’s attention to Derek again.

“He talked to the hitchhiker,” he reported. Straight to the point. No wasted time on frivolities. _Get in, get out, go home_. Stiles had his new personal mantra on loop in his head just to make his voice work. “Can we get it out now?”

Deaton looked askance at the werewolf and Derek nodded at him. “She says she’ll go back to the Nemeton.”

“Good enough,” said Deaton. He glanced beyond Stiles out toward the rain. “But we can’t do anything about it tonight. We’ll try it in the morning. Sunrise?”

That was agreeable to Derek, but he was a wolf and he could catnap. Stiles bit back a sigh and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Alright. I’ll finish up what I was working on here and call it a day. A very long one at that,” Deaton said. He looked between the two late-night visitors. “I assume that was the purpose of the visit. Anything else I need to know about?”

Derek’s attention fell back on Stiles, curious. The teenager stared back, hunched in his hoodie like he had been cornered. Stiles finally gave up. He was being stupid. He had to just get over it. He scrubbed nervously at his forehead and tried to figure out how to talk again. Stiles looked to Deaton.

“Look, I wanted... I wanted to say _I’m sorry I sicced Derek on you_ , and _thank you_ , and I really mean it. Both counts,” he finally managed. Derek crossed his arms, both eyebrows halfway to his hairline. Deaton was actually easier to look at just then, because Stiles couldn’t tell if Derek was going to hit him with an _I Told You So_ or maybe maul him a little in the lobby and that just wasn’t Stiles’ scene yet. The werewolf waved his hand a little over his crossed forearm, Derek’s version of an encouraging _Go on_. There was another stall-out but Stiles kicked himself through it, looked over at Deaton again. “You were just trying to help and I was messed up and _he_ maybe probably would have actually caused damage if I’d freaked out. And you helped _anyway_ even though I was _stupid_. So. Thanks.”

The druid let the words sit there for a moment, weighing them out. He looked from Stiles to Derek and back, just to be sure it hadn’t been pried out of Stiles, that it was actually something willingly given. Stiles shook himself when he realized that and pointed at Derek while still paying attention to Deaton.

“We were just going to get food. He didn’t put me up to anything,” he said quickly. “Nobody did. I just... wanted to clear that up, I guess.”

“In that case, apology accepted. And you’re welcome,” said Deaton. “But let’s try to keep the soul-mutilation to a minimum in the future, hmm? It’s a lot easier to act on when it’s caught early.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and nodded, waved off a lazy salute. “Should be a lot easier now. Not pack, not a high-value target. Once the hitchhiker’s gone, anyway.”

Derek’s content expression faded and he looked like he was biting his tongue on what was now an old argument. Deaton didn’t miss it and he shook his head, the knowing grin back on the man’s face again.

“Pack takes many forms, Mr. Stilinski,” he said mildly. “Don’t write yourself off yet.”

 

***

The plan had been to catch the movie and then dinner, but Melissa hardly made it to the end credits. She was irritable and annoyed, her attention span gone. There was somewhere else she was _supposed_ to be. Something was wrong, but every text she sent out was replied to. Even Derek's, but based on the winking smiley face in the reply, Melissa was pretty sure Stiles had written it. Melissa chewed at her lip as she waited for Casey to let her in the car. Even he was on edge, the door held open more as a protective measure than out of some Gentleman's Code book. They didn't say anything until they were in the car, out of the rain and away from prying ears.

"Okay," said the sheriff slowly. "Something's wrong."

"No, I'm just-" Melissa leaned her elbow on the car door and shoved her curls out of her face, a frustrated huff escaping. "I don't know, paranoid?"

Casey frowned at her. "Yeah? But lately when _two_ people hit the same level of paranoid, _at the same time_ , there's something wrong."

Melissa held up her phone. "Everyone checked back. The only one who said there was a problem was Danny-"

"What happened to Danny?" asked Casey, concerned. So far, Danny was the least meddlesome of the three packs and the last person the sheriff would have expected to to find trouble. Melissa rolled her eyes.

"He said Lydia broke a nail and was trying to start World War Three with Aiden."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Stilinski shook his head. "I really don't think I'm this in-tune with the state of Lydia's manicure."

"I'm not this in-tune with my own _anything_ ," said Melissa.

"So what do we want to do?"

"Go home and cook something?" suggested Melissa. "Or just get take-out on the way. I don't know..."

Stilinski stared out the window, thinking it over. “I don’t know what this is. But gratuitous amounts of bacon should take care of it.”

 

***


	19. Chapter 19

The diner held the usual late-night crowd, not obnoxiously packed but not empty, either. Derek could remember driving by the place more times than ever wanting to actually walk into it, but now that he was in it, he was giving it a second consideration. The kitchen smelled like a small slice of heaven and the dining area wasn’t too brightly lit or too noisy. It looked oakie and redneck and uncomfortable on the outside, but apparently looks could be deceiving when it came to burger joints. Stiles occasionally called it his _precious_ and Derek could almost understand why if the food held up to the promises.

Instinct distracted from the ambiance suddenly and Derek looked around. He could still hear Stiles clarifying the order at the counter around the corner, so he knew Stiles was okay. It felt more like...

“Derek?”

The werewolf looked up suddenly at the territory alpha sliding into the bench across from him. Melissa was smiling, though her scent told Derek clearly enough that she was worried about something. His surprise came out as a frown before he could find his manners and return the smiled greeting.

That was apparently how parents invited themselves to dinner, because Stiles and his dad showed up not long after. Derek blinked up at them for a moment, then only at Stiles because Stilinski had already sat down beside Melissa. The smile on Stiles’ face was completely fake - one side looked more like a sneer than a smile, really - and he looked resigned to something akin to torture. Derek glanced over at the broad smile on the sheriff’s face and sat up a little straighter, edged over on the bench to let Stiles sit down. The food hadn’t been brought with them, but Derek knew the order had been made because he had listened in, which meant there was no easy way out of it. Stiles stalled a little too long about sitting down and Derek caught his wrist to tug him into the booth; there was no way _he_ was getting out of it. Stiles slouched in the bench and Derek tried _not_ to, like his life depended on it.

“Soo... how’s date-night?” asked Stiles. Derek smirked because the tone of voice plainly informed everyone at the table that Stiles really _didn’t_ want to know. Melissa caught on and shook her head, made a face.

“Wonderful,” she reported blandly. “We’re _here_ , aren’t we?”

“And how’s the babysitting?” returned the sheriff.

“Over and done with at sunrise,” said Derek. “Deaton’s already planned for it, I just have to show up.”

“Sunrise, meaning actual sunrise?” Mel pulled out her cell phone and started flicking through screens. Derek nodded, catching sight of her screen. She was looking up the actual projected time of sunrise on an app on her phone. He tried not to look too surprised as she promised to show up at 5:40 on the nose just to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

“Wait. What?” asked Stiles. “You’re going to that?”

“With the way things have been going lately?” asked Melissa, her tone perfectly sincere. “Yes, we’re going. And we’re bringing Talia. Did you tell her yet?”

Derek shook his head. “No, we only _just_ talked to Deaton.”

“I’ll get her there,” Melissa promised. Stiles smirked over at Derek.

“We should sell tickets to this,” he decided. Derek narrowed his eyes at him but it didn’t seem to fade the grin at all. Stiles shrugged and started to say something else but was struck silent by the appearance of red wicker baskets full of grease and salt masquerading as burgers and fries. Stiles’ jaw dropped as one was placed in front of his father before Stiles could claim it for himself or Derek.

“Wait- that doesn’t... go... there...” Stiles’ protest was quieted as his and Derek’s sandwiches were passed along after Melissa’s basket had been put down. He glared up at Melissa, annoyed. “I can’t believe you let him eat like that,” he said with a wave at his dad’s food basket. Which was, coincidentally, exactly identical to his and Derek’s both. Obviously Melissa was supposed to know better than them, however, and Derek just raised an amused eyebrow as Stiles carried on. “And you call yourself a nurse, Mrs... Mel. I’m going with Mel, since he’s still Koz.”

“I think since it’s been over a month at this point, it’s going to be Koz for awhile longer, too,” said Mel, smug. She poked at the little bucket of BBQ sauce with a french fry, not overly concerned by Stiles’ front. Derek consulted his own food to hide behind. Stilinski grinned at the scowl on Stiles’ face and crunched at a french fry in a good imitation of Bugs Bunny with a carrot. Derek effectively lost it and almost wore the burger he had been about to bite into. He wisely switched to french fries as Stiles narrowed his eyes over at him next.

“Enablers. He’s gonna have a heart attack and you’re just going to laugh,” said Stiles. He had no problems biting in to his own sandwich after that. Derek just shook his head.

“If I was going to _kick-it_ by something so blessedly normal as a heart attack, it would have happened by now,” replied the sheriff. “So calm down and enjoy your bacon, kid.”

“Ha,” said Stiles. “I don’t even know what normal looks like. I guess if you keep eating bacon it’ll give me something to look forward to then.”

“You will not kill this for me,” his father replied. “You can just keep trying. It won’t happen.”

Derek stared at Stiles, silently surprised and openly amused. For all the kid put into the act, he really was worried about the stupid bacon. He could hear it, and he could feel it in the slight bounce of the knee beside his on the bench. Derek shook his head and set his arm across the back of the bench, the only shield he could offer Stiles for the monster-of-the-moment since it was apparently a basket of fries and bacon. The bouncing knee stilled as Stiles hooked his ankle around Derek’s and that seemed to do the trick between the two of them. Derek figured it was safe to start working on his food again as the table went momentarily quiet.

Once half of the sheriff’s sandwich was gone, the man seemed to need a breather. Stiles really wasn’t kidding when he had described a sandwich as tall as his hand and Derek was pretty sure even Stiles was going to have a hard time finishing the burger, so he wasn’t really surprised. Soda, fries, and then... talking.

“So I realized something recently. And it’s about you so you might want to stop pretending to ignore me on this one,” the sheriff said to his son. Stiles froze, burger in mouth, and looked up at him.

“Listening,” Stiles reported around the chewing.

“Your window has a welcome mat under it,” said Stilinski. Derek choked on his food. Stiles held it a little more together. It was a public place, Derek wouldn’t be shot by the sheriff in the middle of a diner, so rational thought prevailed. Derek could kick himself, but he couldn’t undo the damning choking fit.

“Yep. Has for like, two years,” said Stiles mildly. “Give or take.”

The sheriff nodded as Melissa smirked at Derek. It was still a father-son conversation, so Derek gladly stayed out of it.

“I was thinking that maybe it would be a good idea if the person said mat was set out for started using the _front door_ for the purposes it was architecturally designed for,” said Stilinski, brows lifted in clear challenge as he glanced sideways at Derek. Hiding behind a soda, Derek glanced at Stiles. Stiles looked back at him, a grin on his face. There was no way Derek was surviving this conversation with his pride intact.

“No promises,” he muttered. If he was completely honest, Derek was rather attached to his window access route.

“No promises it hasn’t been edged in ash,” returned Stilinski, smug. Stiles looked offended.

“Oh come on... then he’s gotta knock and things get weird and...”

...And Derek couldn’t believe they were having this conversation at all, let alone at a burger place...

“So get him a key,” said Melissa. “You’ve had one to my house for how long? Stop thinking you’re sneaking something. You aren’t, and you haven’t been, and just _please_. _We know_ when he’s there.”

“Door,” said Derek quickly. “Got it.”

“And now that the whole mortal-danger scenario isn’t working in your favor anymore, overnights get approved in advance,” added Stilinski as Derek tried to find some crevice in the bench to disappear into.

“Okay, seriously?” Stiles’ outburst was considerably subdued, in light of the fact that they were in a public place, but barely. A traitorous voice of reason at the back of Derek’s mind suggested that the conversation was likely happening in public for that very reason.

“Yep. You’re still seventeen and I’m still the sheriff.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been on lockdown for like a month and _didn’t do anything_ and now that I’m finally actually able to maybe find my _own_ trouble again, you’re making it permanent?” asked Stiles. Stilinski grinned at him.

“Nope. These are just the ground rules,” he said. “Since you were on lockdown, we never got to cover them. Too many exigent circumstances that needed worked around.”

That was not the answer either of them were expecting and Derek peeked up from behind the soda cup. Stiles seemed to have frozen on whatever argument he had already gotten cued up in his head and he stopped, tilted his head and narrowed his eyes in the universal sign of utter confusion.

“What?”

The sheriff tucked into his burger again, deciding to maintain conversation between bites.

“Well, for starters, we didn’t mean to put you in lockdown for a month. Didn’t even realize it had happened until I started seriously considering boarding over your window when you ran off a few nights back,” said Stilinski. Derek raised an eyebrow as Stiles jerked like he had aborted an effort to jump across the table to smack his father.

“Leave my _window_ alone!”

“That’s what I’m getting to, let me _finish_ ,” said Stilinski. “You have this... suicidal impulse, or god knows what it is, Stiles, because I really don’t, but you’ve got it. The crowd you run with could get you killed. The bacon you’re eating could kill you. Walking to the grocery store for PopTarts? I _should_ say: Forget it, that’s out, _forever_. I’m your dad. That’s my job.”

“No it’s no-” Stiles’ effort at interrupting was likewise interrupted.

“It is. Shut up until you’re a father yourself and _then_ you can tell me it’s not,” said Casey. “So, yeah, when you disappeared to Nevada for a couple of days to get _your ass kicked_ , there was a slight overreaction on everyone’s part when you were returned because you’re the only kid _without_ claws, fangs, or crossbows. And I’m sorry. But I’m also not sorry because that’s _still_ my job.”

The man shrugged and set his burger in its basket with a sort of finality that said his appetite was exhausted. Melissa still nibbled at her chicken strips but the bacon burgers had all been abandoned around the table. Even Derek could do little more than pick at his fries and try not to stare or intrude on their conversation. He listened very attentively as Casey carried on.

“I just recently figured out I should be doing my job a little better than I have been,” said Casey. He sounded completely sincere and Derek was listening and heard no trace of any Stiles-like theatrics. The man meant every word he said. “So you want to go and get yourself into trouble, I figure you can do that, as long as you’ve got someone with claws, fangs, or a crossbow handy. You’re seventeen, and with the stuff we’re buried in now? It’s not like you’re going to learn anything new from me at this point. It’ll be from them, not me.”

Stiles just stared, mouth open, food forgotten. “Wait... you mean that?”

Stilinski nodded. “Yep. But that’s why the ground rules. The window’s a problem. It’s gonna get fixed. _He_ uses the door. Authorize the overnights. Be safe. You actually think before you do something stupid, maybe ask for a second opinion if you can’t point to something you learned growing up that says _bad idea, behave accordingly_. You make _every_ effort to ensure you make it to _at least_ your twenty-first birthday so that you can witness me die of a nice _normal_ , bacon-inspired heart-attack, and I’ll sit here and trust you know what you’re doing. No more default to lockdowns and babysitters.”

For once, Stiles was speechless. Completely and totally unable to form words. Derek kept his head down to hide the smirk but he still watched as Stiles had to visibly make the decision _not_ to lean over two bacon burgers and three soda cups to hug his dad. Stilinski was grinning at Stiles, either proud of his kid or proud of himself for the once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment of actually managing to shut him up.

Derek knew _he_ should shut up, knew he should just enjoy the moment of stupefied silence from Stiles, but at the same time, somebody had to defend Stiles’ honor on it. It couldn’t be allowed to pass quietly away. He bumped Stiles’ leg with his, tugged at the ankle still looped with his. Casually shrugged and dunked a french fry in some ketchup. He was an unassuming, innocent werewolf in the family drama, _nothing to see here_...

“So the ground rules?” he asked mildly, waved a fry around. “Do they apply to the whole house? Or _just_ Stiles?”

Melissa’s jaw dropped as Stilinski shoved back against the bench, beat at their own game. “Sonuvabitch!”

“That, Mr. _Hale_ , is _not_ fair,” protested Melissa. She threw a fry across the table at him. Stiles went from stunned and contemplating freedom to gloating and proud and Derek couldn’t help the smile on his face for having caused it.

 

***

As jumping-outs went, Chris' could have been worse. He had let a wolf _kill_ Mark Hutchinson, after all. Hurt and _left for dead_ was at least not _actually_ dead. The trouble was moving hurt, and if he didn't move, he ran the very real risk of losing too much blood and dying right there on the broken floorboards of the old Hale house. Or he did move and he made it out into the rain, into the woods, to become a target for mountain lions and any other damn carnivore. In short, to put it bluntly, Chris was screwed.

His shirt was shredded in places from the knives in the fight, and he had been slammed into walls and onto glass strewn, muddy floors. It was completely useless to him to try to stop the blood loss for that alone, not to mention the fact that he couldn't field-wrap his own shoulder. So Chris propped himself up against a wall and tried to keep himself awake in the dark with mind puzzles. The biggest mental-twister game of all at the moment was "why didn't you kill the old bastard when the boys turned him?"

It would have saved so much trouble.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of three am, Chris was still amped on pain-fueled adrenaline, fighting sleep and blood loss with an old towel he had found in the kitchen still tucked away in a drawer. He had it rolled up tight and leaned on it against a wall, a steady pressure over the wound. The best he could do until daylight, when he would at least be able to see to walk out to the road. He just had to stall the inevitable that was dying of blood loss in the middle of the woods.

Noise on the porch caught his attention and the hunter had to decide between standing to investigate and playing dead. The noise was slow, either something overly cautious or something injured. Chris stood to go find out.

The front door of the old house had been an early casualty of the fight. It hung open and from the right angle, Chris could peek around the corner of the once dining room and see the porch unnoticed. The visitor sniffing awkwardly at the porch was none other than his father. Anger pushed Chris from the safety of his hiding place and out to confront his old man. He was satisfied by the harsh startled reaction, Gerard nearly falling on his ass by tripping over the sword he was using as a walking stick.

"I doubt you came back to help me out," Chris said. He even sounded like he had been through a beating, but anger did wonders as an intimidation boost when human frailty got in the way. "So what do you want?"

Gerard stared in at him in the darkness, not moving far from the door. "I came to see if you survived."

"I've survived worse than them," returned Chris. "What did you do with my cellphone?"

"It must be around here somewhere. Unless they kept it. They may just burn your contacts," said Gerard. "But you have a pack, boy. Call for help in the usual way. Stand up for yourself. Howl at the moon, Christopher! Call them to your aid!"

The false, mocking enthusiasm only grated. It was a good reminder that Gerard was worthless. Chris didn't think _he_ was yet and moved confidently into the husk of a foyer. Before Gerard had a chance to consider it was even a possibility, Chris dragged a fist across his father's jaw.

It wasn't much of a fight. Both of them were weak - Chris from the worst bar brawl of his life and Gerard from the kanima and aconite poisoning the wolf he should have become - and they mutually backed off to their own corners after a few punches went wide.

"Get out," Chris said. He had backed off but wasn't done yet and would force Gerard out if he had to. "Go find your cures and poison someone else's life."

"This _pack_ of yours with wolves. Did you even think of _My grand daughter_? Of the promise you were throwing away?" said Gerard, voice cold and angry. "The child is her grandmother all over again. Born to hunt. Born to _lead_. Potential you _wasted_ all these years! And you sullied the name this way. She needs a teacher that..."

"Like you taught Kate?" Chris cut in. "I'd rather Alison never learn another damn thing than have you for a teacher."

Rigid with fury, Gerard took a step forward as he said, "That could _still_ be arranged."

If the threat was meant to subdue him, Chris was really happy to disappoint. "Try it old man, and she'll feed what's left of your sorry carcass to _my pack_."

Gerard growled in response, a low guttural sound that seemed to surprise the old man just a little and Chris decided enough was enough. He didn't have the strength for continued sparring with the old man so resorted to one more easy way out before he had to risk kicking a werewolf's ass in close range again.

He still had the knife. He threw it, aiming as best he could for his father's face. It shocked the both of them when Gerard caught the blade out of the air on pure instinct. Gerard stayed silent, surprised, and Chris was worried.

"Talia told me what's wrong with you," he said. "The aconite is fighting the wolf, the wolf is fighting the kanima. You can't win this."

Gerard tilted his head, expression tense. After stopping a blade inches from his nose, sick or not, he didn't believe Chris. He threw the knife back, only half-heartedly aiming at anything. There was no need to even step aside to avoid it. The old man turned his back on Chris and left the house, his mind obviously working over something more _important_ , and there was no way that would end well for anyone. But Chris didn’t care at the moment. His father limped slowly away with the weight of the sword dragging him more than helping because he was too sick to really handle it. It was late enough, the winter rainy season in full effect and turning the ground into slippery muck, the woods could kill him with less effort than Chris would have to waste.

He watched to be sure Gerard actually left, stood near the wall in case his father somehow sensed the weakness and returned. When he was certain he was alone, Chris finally gave in to the demands of exhaustion. He sank to the floor with the help of the wall, little better than a controlled fall as his knees gave out under him. He was tired, he hurt, and he’d had a good contender for the _Night from Hell_ just in the last few hours alone. The wall offered what support it could, but when the dizziness and disorientation hit, Chris slumped to his side as he blacked out.

 

***


	20. Chapter 20

True to his word, Deaton cleared his schedule the very next morning. He warned them that Jennifer would have to be dragged out more painfully than when she had gone in, but that was as much because of her power fighting them as it would be because of Deaton bending a few rules to get it done. The Druid’s power would be restored to the tree because, according to Deaton, trees were like purifiers. No tree was inherently good or bad. It was, after all, just a tree.

In case something went wrong, Stiles wasn’t allowed to be in the root cellar when they did it this time. Talia and Scott and Melissa could, because as wolves and an alpha with the power of three packs behind her, whatever could go wrong would do less damage to them than it might to Stiles. The assumption was that he wasn’t far enough away from the damage that had already been done, even though he was healing faster this time without Jennifer in there trying to make things worse. Deaton wouldn’t even tell him how it would be accomplished after Stiles’ had tried his own hand at self-druid-ing and apparently no one could trust him to leave it alone.

So Stiles was banished to the treeline around the Nemeton, not allowed any closer to the cellar than that. His dad was appointed to be sure he went nowhere near the dangerzone. They waited out the long process of the spell with Stiles leaned against a tree, where he kicked at leaves and mud. It was way too early to even be awake, the sun only just peeking over the mountains and stars still out. Stiles yawned and pulled his hat lower over his head to keep his ears from freezing off.

“Woah...” Stiles looked up as his dad hit him lightly in the shoulder to get his attention. He followed his gaze to the massive tree stump in the center of the ring of trees. The tree had a brightness to it, not exactly glowing, but suddenly the only patch of daylight in the pre-dawn of the rest of the woods. The sheriff caught a handful of the shoulder of Stiles’ jacket to make him stay.

“What?” Stiles complained. “I wasn’t gonna...” He stopped talking when he realized his dad had his hand on the gun at his hip and wasn’t actually looking at the same thing Stiles had found. Stiles looked around until he saw, just beyond the Nemeton, a familiar old man. There was a spell in process that would unload a boat-load of power into the old tree and Gerard Argent was reaching out to get involved in it.

“Oh shit! No!” Stiles was brought up short again by his dad’s hold on him and jerked to a stop just feet inside the circle. Gerard looked up and Stiles saw the smile on the old man’s face. And then something happened. It felt like something _broke_ under the sudden panic Stiles felt. He still reached to get at Gerard, get away from his dad to stop the old man from interfering with the Nemeton, but Stiles felt something kick back at his hand. It was just like when he walked into the mountain ash at Deaton’s, but it felt... reversed. And then he realized Gerard wasn’t at the tree. He was sprawled on the ground ten feet from it. Stiles went still, blinking out at the still spell-bound tree stump.

Neither one of them knew what had just happened. He heard his dad swear as he let go of Stiles’ jacket and that seemed enough like permission for Stiles. The teen cut across the clearing, toward Gerard but keeping his distance from the tree. The sheriff followed at a more cautious distance, his weapon drawn but aimed at the ground because of Stiles’ darting around. They didn’t go near Gerard, just left him there, looking dead enough for all they cared at the moment. He was supposed to have been dead to start with and Stiles had liked his life better then.

The second the tree went dark, faded into the rising sunlight, Stiles ducked back to the cellar door. He looked up at his dad before he touched it. “I gotta check- You okay- you got him?”

The sheriff nodded and waved Stiles gone and his son attacked the cellar.

“Where’s Derek?” Stiles called out as he pounded down the restored steps. The man blinked back at him from the middle of the room with Deaton, Talia, Scott and Melissa all standing crowded at the workbench. Derek looked wasted, but at Stiles’ concerned stare offered up a hint of a smile to say it had worked. Stiles allowed himself a grin but it was quickly gone. He pointed up at the ground above them.

“Gerard. Argent. He messed with the... with the tree while you were doing the-” The rushed explanation was silenced as Talia and Deaton made a break for the cellar doors with Scott on their heels. Derek stood at the table, looking too shaky to go with them.

“If _he’s_ here, you can’t stay here,” Stiles told him. Melissa and Derek seemed to agree. They left the debris from the spell and Melissa grabbed the camp lantern. Stiles moved to help Derek away from the table and they made their way up the stairs with Melissa’s help. By the time they got to the top, the sun reflected off of all the wet leaves and tree branches and the resulting shadows only helped blind them. When Stiles could see again, he wished he couldn’t.

“What the hell happened?” asked Derek loudly. Stilinski sat against the trunk of the Nemeton. Deaton crouched at his side and waved a pen-light at his eyes. Talia was more noise than visible, crunching through leaves at the outskirts of the tree ring. It looked like she was hunting a scent. Scott was nowhere to be found.

“Dad?” Stiles called out.

“I’m fine,” came the annoyed response from the sheriff. As they came around the trunk, Derek had his feet under him better and Stiles was able to go check on his dad. He caught Casey’s shoulder and realized the annoyance on his dad’s face was self-directed, a frustration from failure. The sheriff waved it off.

“The old bastard had a... a goddamn sword. Clubbed me over the head with the hilt.”

“A sword?” echoed Derek. Stiles looked back at him.

“What’s that mean?” he asked.

“It means I know what they use those for,” said Derek. “We need to leave.”

“Then go back to the cars. I’ll get Talia and Scott back,” Melissa left Derek and Casey to Deaton and Stiles to get moved out. She chased after Talia. Derek swore and nodded, reluctant and very frustrated about following orders. Stiles and Deaton helped Casey stand and the sheriff waved off their attempts to help walk. Stiles kept between him and Derek, just in case one or the other needed caught on the hike back to the cars.

 

***

 

They waited at the cars until well after Scott was late for school. There was no way Scott or Stiles were passing this semester. One more thing added to the list of things Derek worried about now: attendance rolls. There had been no sign of Gerard, though, and Stiles had spent five minutes trying to conjure up Jennifer with no results, so things were maybe looking up. They just had to get Scott and the other two to stop playing around hunting an old man with a sword.

Stiles and Derek leaned against the back of the Sheriff's cruiser, shoulder to shoulder so Stiles didn't chatter from the cold and adrenaline let-down. The sheriff and Deaton stood by Deaton's car not far off, quietly discussing Stiles. Stiles pretended he didn't notice. It raised warning flags for Derek.

"What did you do?" he asked. Stiles took a deep breath and scrunched his face in that way he had that usually signaled he had done something very wrong.

"I may or may not have used Druid voodoo to flatten Gerard?" He said it as a question, shrugged off the implications either way. Derek's good mood of the morning disappeared. Stiles had more. "It could have been the tree. You were uploading Jennifer, right, so everything was all lit up and stuff was happening that I was definitely _not_ a part of... I'm kind of going on the theory that it was the tree, really."

"But you made something happen?"

"I don't- I mean, maybe?" Stiles shrugged. He scrubbed at his hair and played with the hat that kept fluffing it up worse. "He was messing with the tree. I panicked a little. I could have."

"You would have noticed," said Derek. Stiles pulled another accidentally-guilty face.

"You would think," he said mildly. Then he gave Derek the side-eye. "How would you know anyway?"

That stopped Derek a moment. He recovered and raised an eyebrow. "I read. I know things, too," he said, throwing Stiles' own explanation for paranormal theories back at him. Stiles got the very big grin on his face that generally made Derek nervous, with good reason.

"And no, I'm not going to read up on whatever it is you're thinking about," he said, quieter.

"Yeah, and I'll bet money that's because you already did after the last time I thought about it out loud," said Stiles.

"Pretty sure I knew what _that_ was before you had to _research_ it," returned Derek.

The smug Stiles leaned back against the car again, eyebrows raised at the taunt. After a moment he made quiet, goading, chicken noises, in Derek's general direction. Those stopped when Derek moved to catch him in a headlock and Stiles bolted around the car. Derek chased after him without thinking and was allowed to catch him on the other side. Conveniently out of the sheriff's easy sight. Funny how that happened. Derek caught Stiles’ by the front of the shirt and pulled him close, finally able to catch the long-missed scent now that neither one of them harbored a second soul to mess with the marks. Stiles leaned him back against the car doors and didn't let him ask any more questions about Druid voodoo for a few minutes.

They broke apart swearing, Stiles ducking at the waist and grabbing at his side pockets like they had lit on fire. Deaton had made them all mute their phones before the spell and when they both went off, trapped at each hip between two bodies already over sensitized from the mix of body heat and cold air... Derek was only slightly better off; more muscle for padding, and he had the big Toyota to lean against.

"Ohmygod Scotty I'mgomnakillyou," Stiles rasped into his phone. Derek answered his phone much calmer.

"Mom? Where are you?" he asked.

"At the house," came the stiff reply. Derek's peace disappeared at her tone. He stood away from the sheriff's car then. Stiles seemed to recover at the same time, looking over at Derek in alarm.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked.

"They found Chris," said Stiles, even as Derek got a similar answer from his mom. The problem was, nobody had known Chris was missing in the first place.

"We need you to bring a car up here. Sooner would be better," Talia told him. Stiles was already jogging toward his dad.

"Is everyone alright?" Derek asked. There was a long pause.

"We need to get Chris home. Just hurry up here," said Talia.

"On it," said Derek. He hung up with his mom and stepped around the front of the car. He was surprised to see the sheriff already ducking into the back of Deaton's car. Stiles was coming back to the cruiser and tossed the keys over the hood at Derek.

"Dad's got a concussion," he reported. "He said you _can’t_ drive his truck."

 

***


	21. Chapter 21

The house was trashed, more than the usual. The front door hung half off it's hinges, the windows alongside shattered into pieces across the porch. The stair banister in the foyer was broken and splintered into chunks all over the floor below. Even the walls had taken a beating. And there was blood. It was on the jacket Scott found on the floor with an old worn kitchen towel, it was on the walls and across the floor in places. It smelled like it was everywhere, but it wasn't actually _that_ bad. It just felt like maybe it _could_ be and Scott wanted to leave. Chris looked like he had gone through a few of the walls inside and didn't need to stick around anywhere near it.

Scott found what smelled like Chris’ cell phone tucked up on the stairs just above his head among banister pieces by tracking some of the scents. Just to confirm whose phone it was, he entered Allison’s birthday for a guess at the pass-code and was rewarded with full access to the phone. It was a short victory that he didn’t even bother to tell anyone about; the only names left in the phone weren’t even names, just phone numbers. Scott recognized his mom’s, and the sheriff’s, and Derek’s, but there weren’t many others. Even the photos had been deleted. Chris was going to be pissed if he didn’t have anything backed up. Scott checked the texts, because he knew his mom had sent out a group-message text the night before. He found their conversation, saw the same text message he had gotten from his mom, and Chris’ simple “Yeah, fine” in return. Scott grimaced at the phone as he walked back out to the others.

"Found his phone," he reported at the porch. They had gotten Chris that far, to a corner that wasn't shredded or shattered and all they had to worry about was the cold. Melissa and Talia worked on cleaning him up with what they had, still trying to figure out the damage. The man had either been in a knife fight, or Gerard had learned to shift into werewolf mode. Curled in the extra warmth of a werewolf’s lap and being tended to by a pissed off nurse with no first aid kit, Chris wasn't actually coherent enough to say yet.

“Stupid phones,” muttered Melissa. “I should have _called_ everyone. I knew something was wrong.”

“Yeah, but he replied,” said Scott, trying to put her at ease. She shook her head as she plucked glass off a cut in Chris’ arm. “Or someone did, anyway. You couldn’t have known...”

“From now on, that doesn’t get to happen,” snapped Melissa. “When someone sends out a call for a check-in, _I’m Fine_ is no longer an acceptable response. You get more creative with the response, or you get an APB through the sheriff’s office.”

Scott raised an eyebrow. “What, like codewords?”

Mel latched on to the idea, even distracted. “Yes. Exactly,” she said. Her determined, very, very pissed off tone in no way matched the topic of their conversation and she was fully serious. “I’m thinking the only appropriate response to a check-in from now on is _fluffy freaking bunnies_. Pass the word.”

Scott smirked as Talia shook her head. "I will not type that."

The sheriff's cruiser showed up around then and Scott was moving the second he saw the lights beyond the trees. He helped Talia get Chris to the car as Melissa dug into the back of it for the First Aid kit. Stiles held the door out of the way as Talia and Scott sorted out how to get the barely-conscious body into the Toyota.

"We're taking him to the hospital, right?" asked Stiles. Talia shook her head.

"No hospital," Chris mumbled at them. Stiles startled at the man who didn't look alive enough to talk, then recovered and balked.

"Oh come on. I said that and I got ganged up on and dragged!"

"Stiles, not _now_ ," said Melissa. He accepted the order and closed the door once Melissa climbed inside with Talia and Chris. Stiles jumped back into the passenger seat and Scott went around back to shut the truck gate. He caught a ride back with Deaton and the sheriff.

"What the hell happened?" asked Stilinski. Scott shook his head.

"He didn't say much. Just that it was hunters and his dad," said Scott. "We know Gerard was up here because we followed his scent up here. But we didn't find him. Just Chris."

"How bad is he?"

"Looks real bad. And Mom thinks it happened a couple hours ago? He was cold, lost a lot of blood."

"We're going to the hospital, right?" asked Deaton. Scott shook his head.

"Chris said no."

"Shit."

 

***


	22. Chapter 22

Allison didn't take it well when the sheriff showed up to pull her out of school to go see her dad. She didn't like that he had gone home instead of to a hospital any better than Chris liked it that she had left school. No one was letting Chris sleep for a day or so which was bound to make anyone cranky anyway. The middle ground was that Melissa was behind the scenes, her nursing skills and Deaton's vet skills working together nicely to make up for the lack of actual alpha-wolf capabilities. Derek and Scott hadn’t gone to any sort of medical schooling, and Melissa couldn’t actually x-ray anyone.

Congregated in the Argent kitchen this time, Casey got more of the story out of Chris once the man had been given food, coffee and pain killers. Everyone felt a little better when Chris got to the part where Gerard left limping on the sword. Chris scowled through the whole thing, unhappy with the amount of sunlight in the room.

"If he was hurt - I mean, more than usual - then why couldn't we get a scent off of him at the Nemeton?" asked Scott.

Derek blinked and Stiles’ jaw dropped as he stared at Scott, somewhere between angered and scared. "Wait- you wha- you couldn't get a scent? Like, at all?"

"No. Only the one back to the house."

Matching looks of alarm turned to Deaton. "Could he have..."

The emissary Druid shook his head. "Once she was returned to the tree, she became energy. I have no possible way of knowing what the tree would do with that energy in the midst of receiving it."

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Chris, sour and sore. Thankfully no longer bloody and covered in ash and dirt from the Hale house or it might have been a little scary.

"Jennifer. There was no scent when she was locked up in Stiles," said Derek.

"Or in _you_ ," added Talia. She looked from Derek to Chris again. "A person's scent is unique to everyone. Conveys _more_ than smell. With two lives in one body, it must scramble everything. Nothing is able to catch to identify one life over the other. So _no_ scent. Nothing to track."

Melissa frowned at the conclusion being made. "So Gerard could have a pissed off Druid working at taking over."

Frustrated and seconds from an apparent mental nuclear implosion, Stiles glared at Derek. "You are _never_ allowed to date again. Ohmyfreakinggod."

"Wha-"  Derek furrowed his brow and looked at Stiles to silently ask _What the hell?_   to which Stiles only scrunched his nose and bared his teeth to show his frustrated anonyance.

"Works for me," said Casey.  Stiles' glare turned to him instead.  He shrugged. "What? I've kinda been looking forward to grandkids someday. Nice to know I can go _back_ to that. And it totally negates the whole door versus window thing..."

For a minute there it looked like Stiles wanted to jump into a lecture on the benefits of adoption or the folly of one-night stands toward the end of _grandchildren_. But he caught on to his father's sideways defense of Derek and went back to fuming in silence. Casey smirked, shook his head, and looked to Chris.

"Where would your father go to ground if he's hurt?" he asked.

"Or just seeing _ghosts_ ," added Stiles. Chris started to shake his head but stopped at the sudden obvious reminder of _pain_.

"He won't go anywhere I know about," he said. "That's about all we can count on."

"Maybe not," said Allison. She looked to her father intently. "You said you told him about your pack. You didn't tell him about mine."

"Right. So?"

"So I'm the only family he's got left if he thinks _you're_ dead." Allison's logic almost tackled Chris out of his chair.

 

****

 

"I am not staying here." The man was a mess of cuts and bruises and stubborn pride sitting in a wheelchair in a hospital ER lobby.

" _Here_ is the only place we can get away with killing you," said Melissa. Not quite able to believe that Mel had just said that out loud, Talia rested her face in her palm and silently shook her head. Mel seemed to catch on to her words then and glanced over her shoulder to be sure none of her nurses were lingering. "You know what I mean."

"I didn't agree to this plan," Chris told her.

"Your kid did," said Melissa. "And she's over 18. So she can make her own calls."

The logic got her growled at. Talia rested her hand over Chris' on the wheelchair arm. "You can't help her unless you're strong enough to. Sit here for a few hours, amp up on painkillers, then hightail it for the door. Maybe then she won't bench you."

Melissa and Chris both glared at her for the sarcasm. Talia shrugged.

"Eldest female. You're retired. She calls the shots," she said. "I _know_ how your family works, Chris. And if Allison says you're benched because you're hurt, really, what are you going to do?"

"Abandon hunter protocol," said Chris with a scowl. "I've got two rule books to work from now."

That was almost a clear challenge and Talia raised an eyebrow at him. “If we’re resorting to rulebooks and protocol, should we go find Derek or Scott to fix this for you?” she asked. “You would be healed before you knew it and we wouldn’t be sitting in a hospital again. Sounds like a wonderful idea. With only a few _minor_ drawbacks.”

Chris narrowed his eyes at her and shuffled slightly where he sat in the chair to edge away from the woman’s threat. They both knew it wasn’t actually on the table, but it made him shut up about ditching the hospital.

"Until that’s an option we have to worry about, that hole in your shoulder gets seen to _here_ before you go anywhere. No arguments," said Melissa. Chris started to open his mouth but Mel gave him a sharp look. “Pretty sure _we_ made _me_ the boss here. Not _you_. Sit your ass where I tell you or I’ll get mean.”

Chris grumbled but didn't argue. An orderly appeared to wheel him to a room. The other two followed. Chris was seen to within the hour. Within two, he was stitched, bandaged, and passed out on apparently nice pain meds. Melissa was on a limited-duty shift and likely had something to do with the doctor's choice in prescriptions. Talia sat with Chris, waited with a borrowed book. She was so very tired of hospital rooms.

 

***

It was dark out when Chris woke up. He wasn't expecting to have been out so long and felt like he had been hit by a freight train. Nothing the hair of the dog wouldn't fix, he just didn't want to track someone down for another dose of whatever they had given him. Chris was in a shared room and his neighbor, behind the privacy curtain, was having problems. There was coughing and choking and it all made Chris cringe. The pain in his head and shoulder stabbed at every noise. A book sat on a chair nearby but Chris didn't remember who had been there to read it or when. Stubborn as usual, Chris saw opportunity in the hospital bag at the floor under the chair.

Without removing the IV or heart monitor taped in their places, Chris very carefully tested himself. He sat up and waited for the wave of protest to fade. It took a minute but it was manageable. Getting out of bed without tipping over was another exercise in determination. Once that was achieved, the bag of clothes was an easy target. He dug into it, surprised to find a scrub-shirt folded at the top of the pile. Taped to the front of it was a note that read " _Because you're stubborn_." Chris frowned at it and pulled it aside to get at his clothes. He realized why the scrub shirt when he saw the mess that had been his shirt. His jacket would survive to see another fight with a little work, but his shirt was bloody and shredded and not worth the effort. Chris accepted the free shirt and grinned as he realized Melissa had stolen it.

Alarms started going off behind him not long after Chris was dressed, spoiling his escape attempt before it had really gotten started. He swore under his breath and had to rush to get back under blankets before the nurses rushed in to check on his neighbor. Someone did check on Chris briefly, just to see if he was awake, but their attention was on the man in the next bed. More nurses crowded in, the noise going up. Somebody called for a crash cart. Chris saw his opportunity come back. He untangled himself from the monitors and let himself out of the room on the heels of one of the nurses running after a doctor. Chris was stiff and hurt but he kept his head down and swung into his jacket as he walked by the nurses' station. No one noticed. His shoulder was going to hate him for years after that bit of theater and Chris made it to the elevators before he broke into a swearing fit and clutched at his shoulder. Someone snuck in just before the doors closed and he went back to playing it cool.

"Just like she said. Mel must be psychic," said a familiar voice and Chris looked over at Talia. “Let me help.” The woman had a faint grin on her face but she held up her palm, concerned. Chris reluctantly took her hand to accept the offer. He had seen the others pull pain before, knew what the black lines meant. It wasn’t something he ever would have asked of Talia. He hadn’t expected it to actually work on him when he accepted, and could only stare because he almost instantly felt better.

"Holy shit." He stared from their hands to Talia’s curious expression with open surprise. Talia smirked at him.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG me and formatting aren't getting along tonight!! Sorry...


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to say, despite the delay in the promised posting, I really can count... Sometimes. I just prefer to write instead... 0:-)
> 
> In other news... Talia's children have hunter-issues...
> 
> \-------

Two calls came in within short minutes of each other. First, Talia, wanting to know where Allison was. Talia was at Derek's, which was as close to off the hunters' maps as they could get with a badly injured Chris. Allison smiled, relieved, and Scott had a hard time remembering how to breathe for a minute. Cora sidled up beside him, her arms crossed as they both eavesdropped on the short call. He coughed to solve his problem, and she rolled her eyes at him.

Scott didn't know what to expect from Gerard. Just in case, his pack camped out at Allison's that night. It was a hard call, a bit of a risk, but neither Talia nor Allison approved of Isaac's idea of punching a hole through the floor of Cora's closet to let them hide at her place instead. If Gerard was watching the apartment, it wasn't like he would be very surprised by the crew that made up Allison's pack when he found out. They sat and they waited and raided the kitchen and Allison had spent most of the evening sharpening arrow points. They were tucked in pretty good at Chris’ place while _Chris_ sat in a werewolf den. Scott thought it was funny, anyway.

Three minutes after hanging up with Talia, the hospital called, with _bad news_. Allison put on the performance of a lifetime. She pretended she was stuck in the Bay Area and wouldn't be able to get home, _it was impossible, how could this happen..._

And by the time anyone realized she _hadn't_ gone to visit her dead dad, the hospital would have sorted out that someone had switched her dad's records. It was so easy to screw up now that everything was computerized. And they were all so dead if the hospital ever looked into it. But Danny and Stiles together equalled at least one computer genius. And Scott's mom was a genius in protective high-gear. So it would work out fine. Three packs working together were so much better than one.

After the way he had handled everything from her mother's death, Allison was sure Gerard would try something once word got around that Chris was dead. She had the resources he would need to keep going without his son hiding him away in a home. He knew about Scott, would probably assume that if nothing else he could get protection from other _hunters_ and _wolves_ behind Allison. He was a sick man and didn't have a lot of options; Gerard cozying up to Allison was the only thing that really made sense. So now they waited.

By eleven, nothing else had happened. Just movies and a couple games of chess. Then the chessboard was swapped out for some very specific, very dangerous ingredients to be playing with on Chris’ coffee table but he wasn’t there to stop them. Besides, he would probably approve of their crafty molotovs. Scott was pretty sure these would work, because he had Lydia text him the recipe to be sure they didn’t forget anything this time, and Chris had some awesome stuff in his “office.” Other than that, Allison kept tabs on her dad but there were no more phone calls, no knocks on the door.

“Maybe he left town?” suggested Isaac. “Or, maybe, and this is probably just wishful thinking, but maybe those hunters tracked him down.”

“If we couldn’t track him, they can’t,” said Cora. “Not possible.”

“We don’t use smell,” said Allison, considering it. Cora rolled her eyes.

“And if you think that’s all _we_ use, there’s your problem.”

Scott sat back and even Isaac withdrew a little from the conversation as the tension notched up between Cora and Allison. Girls. Unpredictable as usual. Except one of them had really sharp knives in her hand and the other had really sharp knives for claws, and the eventual _cat-fight_ could be a problem. Scott figured he needed to at least try to defuse it, since it was probably his fault. He was worried about Allison, very keyed up, and Cora was slightly territorial. He slid his hand from the back of the couch to rest at her low back instead as she leaned forward to rest over her knees. Cora tucked her chin in her hand and glanced back at him. She settled, but Allison only narrowed her eyes a little more at the whetstone in her hand.

“Either way, I think it’s a bust tonight,” she said. “If he was going to do anything, he would have done it by now. He doesn’t have the energy to stay up much past nine pm.” The comment was accompanied by a grin, and the wolves in the room shared it, glad to mock the old man. It was a false confidence, but after all the crap from Gerard, it was nice to have _something_. Alison tucked away her knives and set the stone on the table. “I think we should call it a night and see what happens tomorrow.”

Scott blinked at her. “Okay... I was thinking we should, you know, keep watch and... well, shifts. It would suck to be snuck up on by an old man just because we’re pretty sure he won’t show up past his bedtime.”

Allison shrugged and nodded. “We’ll take a shift in the morning,” she said. She stood up and hooked a finger on Isaac’s shirt collar to tug him out of his chair. He scrambled to his feet just to avoid the sudden glare from Scott. Cora set a hand to Scott’s knee to keep him in his seat as the other two hurried from the room. The door slammed shut and everything was quiet. As long as the werewolves in the living room didn’t pay too much attention to the other rooms in the house.

"Uh. Do I have to, uh, apologize for something?" Scott asked as the quiet dragged on. Cora's brow furrowed as she looked over at him.

"For what?"

"For whatever that was?" Scott waved toward Allison's empty chair.

"That was her and her hunter shit getting on my nerves," said Cora. "Sitting there working on her arrows in front of me."

"Oh. But she has to protect herself... sometimes us..."

"No, trust me. Those things are plenty sharp to take care of that scrawny old man," said Cora. "And I've got enough stuff going on right now. I don't like her rubbing my nose in what her family's done to mine."

Scott frowned and leaned forward to mirror how Cora sat. "Are you okay being here right now?" he asked quietly. "I thought you would want to be with us, since we're moving on Gerard."

"Gerard's my mom's," said Cora. She looked over at him, almost ready to fight him for it. "We can't take that from her."

"Well, right now we're not in danger of that," said Scott. He gave it due consideration but he couldn't promise. "After that it's just going to be protect the pack. Whatever that takes. Allison's in trouble, we make sure she stays safe."

Cora rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."

Scott got in Cora's space, frustrated that he could only sense the annoyance that she wanted him to. "I'm not going to risk her, Cora. You know I can't. She's pack..."

"And she's _Allison_ ," added Cora, her eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, that too," said Scott. He frowned at her again, concern replaced by guilt. "Look, I'm sorry I can't... I don't realize when I..." He wasn't sure what he was apologizing for to know how to do it. He gaped a bit more like a fish than a wolf and Cora rolled her eyes at him. She leaned in against his side, almost playful.

"I get it, Scott. I know. You're not over her and I don’t care," she said. She caught at his hand, asking to hang on to it, so he let her. He at least could read physical touch even when he couldn't always catch what her expression conveyed. Especially when her expression didn't match her scent. Cora shrugged at him.

"Look, I'm not out to set up _house_. Just have someone to hang out with that I don't want to _eviscerate_ every time they open their mouth." The corners of her lips tugged up in an almost smile.

"So- what is this?" Scott motioned between them. "Is this like a pack thing? Or friends with-"

"There's just no endgame," said Cora. "It goes where we want it to, when we want it to. I’m not in a hurry."

Scott blinked at her, surprised. Cora shoved his shoulder, rolled her eyes. "Pack is enough of a long-term plan, isn't it?"

"It definitely complicates the hell out of everything," said Scott. He still stared at Cora, trying to figure her out. For the first time in a month, though, he felt _closer_ to figuring her out than he had since meeting her. The mystery was still there, and plenty of it, but there was a little corner uncovered. Scott smiled at her and she actually smiled back. She tugged at the shoulder of his shirt, her expression dangerous.

"Let me uncomplicate it for you a little. It's a safe bet _they_ won't be leaving the bedroom for awhile," she said. Scott raised an eyebrow. Cora tilted her head a little in challenge. "I am all for breaking in this couch with you."

Scott really didn't have to think too hard about that one.

 

***


	24. Chapter 24

Derek refused to be a babysitter again. It wasn’t for anyone he especially liked, and he felt like he was wasting time that could have been better served _hunting_. Even if he couldn’t sniff out his target, he still had eyes, and Gerard was _one_ goddamn old man probably stalking the Nemeton for Jennifer. It couldn’t be that hard to find him if somebody actually bothered to go look. Instead, they had to watch Chris Argent. Hide an Argent in his apartment. Make sure the idiot didn’t die because he left the hospital too early. Peter was at the hospital babysitting Melissa, who was surrounded by nursing staff and had a short shift because of her still healing arm. Even sitting in the car waiting for _nothing_ to happen outside the hospital was a more productive waste of time.

Stiles had given up on Derek’s foul mood a half an hour earlier and sprawled out on the couch next to him to sleep through it. Talia had tried to leave Derek alone to sort it out but she had apparently hit her limit. Derek looked up from the book he wasn’t actually reading anymore as his mom sat down in the chair across the coffee table from him. He tried not to scowl but it was, in a way, her fault, and Derek couldn’t get that particular thorn out of his paw. He took her silent supervision as an admittance of guilt and tried to turn his attention back to the book he couldn’t focus on.

"If you're not careful you'll wake up the pup with all that thinking," said his mother, because she was a mother, who could sense everything and he really should have known better than to expect that to have changed in six years. Derek shook his head.

"He'll sleep through anything," he said. He raised his hand and flicked a finger at Stiles’ cheek as an illustration. The teen didn’t even twitch. Talia rolled her eyes.

"Then try thinking out loud. Maybe it will help."

Fighting the urge to actually take her advice, Derek went back to trying to read the book. It was just as unsuccessful as before; he had reread the same paragraph three times and still had no idea what any of the words actually said. Derek tossed the book on the coffee table and finally looked up at his mom. It was eating at him and would continue to until he did something about it anyway. Time to get on with it.

“I want to know why we are helping her family," he said quietly. He waved a hand around to indicate his apartment. “Still. Now. We’re _helping_.”

“Her?” asked Talia. She frowned and curled forward in her chair as she seemed to realize what Derek was getting at. “ _Her_ meaning Kate?”

Derek set his jaw and gave a slight nod as his only response to the hunter’s name. If Stiles hadn't fallen asleep with Derek's thigh as a pillow and one arm sprawled over his lap, Derek realized suddenly that he would have stood up and left just to get out of the conversation. He had started it himself and now couldn't leave it.  Instead, he nodded toward his bedroom and the real reason for their conversation.

“ _He’s_ in my house, he smells like _you_. You think you can _trust_ him. And we’re hiding him. From hunters. We’re _baiting_ Gerard. How is this not the _exact same thing_ all over again? It could go the _same way_.”

"They’re pack,” said Talia. “Allison and Chris have helped you and Stiles-"

" _Not_ mine," said Derek, speaking over her, not about to let that misconception stand. "Chris helped Stiles and the sheriff in Tahoe. Allison helped Scott. I had no help, just Stiles."

"Don't let Stiles hear you say that," said Talia.

" _He_ helped," returned Derek. "So no, I don't think just because they're pack that they're any less _hunter_. I _don't know_ what we're walking into with Gerard, and his family is just one more problem."

Talia just stared back at him, watching him, sadness and worry tugging at her expression.

"We're not a problem, Derek."

The unexpected voice startled Derek enough that Stiles woke up. Derek glared at Chris for it where the man stood at the broken brick wall. He shrugged the attitude off and limped into the room. He was groggy and in pain and the slowed breath and heart rate Derek had mistaken for sleep were just Chris' effort at control. Derek's pride kicked his anger up a notch at having been duped by it. But he shifted his hold on Stiles to silently ask him to sleep again. Or at least not let go. Stiles burrowed closer and pretended to be asleep; something he wasn’t any good at, but he tried. An awkward quiet fell; Derek considered the conversation over as soon as Chris invited himself into it.

"For the record, you're right." Chris looked at Derek. "If we had found Stiles first in Tahoe, I _would_ have left you behind. You can fend for yourself in a den of wolves, but the kid can't."

Derek turned his gaze briefly to meet his mother's. It was as much of an _I told you so_ as he would let himself toss out there.

"But that was a month ago,” said Chris. “Things change in a month. They change in six years.”

“Not that much,” said Derek on an annoyed, sarcastic laugh. Chris settled into the chair next to Talia’s and leveled his gaze on Derek.

“Look, life goes on. Things happen. We get five seconds to think about it and we make a call. All of us. It’s not like you’re the only one cursed with bad calls.”

Derek tensed and Stiles fisted a hand in his shirt where it was hidden by the couch, the not-sleeping dead-weight adding what force he could to make sure Derek stayed in the seat. “ _Your_ family is my family’s curse,” he said to Chris. “I’ve got nothing to do with that.”

“Fine, then let’s fix it,” said Chris. “Break the damn curse already. This is your shot at it. I've spent the day trying to figure out how to protect this territory from what’s become of my own father. I’m trying to protect _my_ pack, and yours, and Scott’s. So far all I’ve got nailed down is that my father has to be _put down_.”

Derek went quiet, jaw set.

"Okay," said Chris. The man was tired and injured and short on patience on even his best days. It hit his voice finally when he got tired of running into the walls Derek tried to keep built up on the subject. “My sister was a monster, but she was _my sister_. And she's dead. She didn't even get away with the fire. _Everyone_ knows she did it. _That's_ on my family. You wanna talk about my wife, too?"

"Sure, if you want to talk about my family, _her_ family,” returned Derek, motioning toward his mom. Talia watched him quietly, like she was letting him get it out of his system but she didn’t agree. Derek shrugged it off, annoyed. “Or _Scott_ , and _Stiles_ , and _Erica_ , and _Boyd_. We could go all night."

Chris shook his head. “Scott’s not up for discussion right now,” he said. “My father went from a _human_ monster to some kind of wolf-hybrid who can’t die. He bleeds poison that’s not killing him, just recovers and starts all over again. Scott fed him that. _That_ monster is on Scott. I’m not dealing with that boy right now. Not when I can’t figure out how to clean up his damn mess.”

“Scott was trying to protect _Allison_ ,” said Derek. He didn’t agree with the way Scott had snuck around to do it, but Derek at least understood the kid’s stupid love-sick reasonings for it. Maybe a little too well.

"Yeah. And it was all still done. On _both_ sides. All I can tell you is if I had known about some of what my family was responsible for, it wouldn’t have happened. That’s _why_ no one told me,” said Chris. “You and I, we’ve had our run ins, but you know I had nothing to do with the fire. Or what happened to Scott and Stiles. You know how I work, Derek.”

“Not around Gerard,” said Derek. “No one can be relied on for anything except maybe a knife to the back around him.”

Chris actually flashed a rueful smile. “Funny thing about that. I already took one from him,” he said. “So now that _that’s_ out of the way, do you want to keep digging at old wounds that aren't going to heal? Or do you want to maybe concentrate on working with _the packs we’ve got_ to get rid of the monster that’s still alive?”

Derek didn't feel the question needed answered; everyone knew his opinion on the Argents and Gerard was one of the primary reasons for it. He held Chris' stare, not backing down from the challenge. And then _goddamn_ Stiles _bit_ him just above the hip and Derek jumped, looked down at him in alarm.

"What the _hell_ -"

Blocked from view of the parents across the room, Stiles grinned at him. He still had Derek's shirt between his teeth. Derek shoved his shoulder but the teen didn't sit up. His hand moved into a dangerous position on Derek's other side - the ticklish one - so the man straightened up and caught the hint. His scowl faded slightly as he looked away.

"Fine. You say you're in then I guess you are," was all he could think to say. Derek still kept his arm protectively over Stiles’ back. Chris nodded.

"I'm in," he said. "None of us expected what we got and I'm _not_ walking away from it. We're stuck with each other. Argents and Hales."

"And Stilinskis," said Stiles' muffled voice against Derek's side. Derek rolled his eyes but his mom grinned.

“Oh my,” added Talia.

Stiles swung his arm off of Derek’s lap and blindly reached across the coffee table toward her, expecting and meeting a fist-bump for her joke. Chris shook his head at them, which stopped Derek for a moment when he realized he had done the same thing. Stiles dropped his arm back over Derek’s lap but he no longer threatened Derek’s shirt. The teen closed his eyes and seemed to be settling back down to sleep again.

“Don’t forget the McCalls. And the Mar- well, Lydia. And Danny. And-” The rest of the roll-call was silenced by Derek’s hand over his mouth. A hand that was quickly withdrawn to safer territory.

“Ow! Shit! _No_ biting!”

 

***


	25. Chapter 25

“Seriously, Stiles? Ice cream?” Derek scrubbed at his face with one hand and tried to crush the car keys in his other. He tugged at the door with a little more force than was probably necessary but at least it didn’t break off. Stiles considered that a minor win.

“What? You wouldn’t _let_ me just _sleep_. We already had dinner, and you had to get out of there before you broke something,” said Stiles. He pointed to his jaw and then pointed at Derek’s through the window. “Seriously. That. About three seconds from shattered.”

Settled in the driver’s seat, Derek stared at him. Stiles stood outside. The door was still locked. He tapped on the window as a hint. Derek apparently had to think about pushing the button to unlock the door. Stiles glared at him and then jumped on the handle the second he heard the click just to be sure Derek didn’t mess with him. It was after eleven pm and cold and it was going to rain, he could feel it. No messing around with a frozen Stiles tonight; he was still a little wonky from the Druid voodoo that morning and did not want to know yet what happened when the clouds decided to _Just Add Water_.

“Ice cream?” repeated Derek. He waved out the windshield at the clouds. His eyebrows did the thing. “It’s forty degrees out and you tell them you want ice cream. What are you, pregnant? Do we add pickles to the shopping list?”

Stiles’ mouth hung open for a moment, his brain stuck. “No... but does that - what you just said mean we can _try_ for it? Still don’t have the parts and _Totally_ on board with trying. Any- _time_.” He waved a hand to roll back Derek’s words a bit. “Your mom gave us the car...”

Derek rolled his eyes, complete with refused-smile, and yet still managed to look like he wanted to kill Stiles. It was his charming grin that broke the werewolf down and Derek instead reached over to catch him and tug him in for a perhaps slightly aggressive kiss. But after all day behaving himself under stress, Stiles took it and gave back twice. Then it was gone and Derek was turning his attention toward the mechanics of driving the car they had been loaned. Stiles sighed when he realized the scowl on Derek’s face did not promise they were going to go _park_ anywhere but the nearest _Sonics_.

“Okay but can you at least try to cool it? Just for your own sake?” he asked. His playful hopefulness had been replaced with open concern. "I mean, he’s just staying there until Gerard shows up again. And I get the thing with the Argents but Chris has helped us out, man. We owe him _at least_... one. _Maybe_ two."

Derek cut him a glare. "Don't push me right now, Stiles."

Stiles held up his hands in a firm show of absolute innocence. "I'm not, I swear. I just... I'm trying to understand. I mean, Scott _started_ this whole thing with Gerard, and I know he was an absolute asshat about it all. And we've got Ethan and Aiden and they... killed Boyd..."

The ramble cut off as Stiles realized he had just brought up Boyd to Derek for the first time in months at easily the worst possible time. Until Derek got territorial about Chris in the loft, he hadn’t realized there could be problems in the pack Derek had accidentally pulled together. It wasn't like the twins really wanted a pack; they expected what they had with Deucalion and Derek spent more time arguing with Aiden than accomplishing anything. Unless there was trouble, they listened to Lydia more than they sided with Derek and he let them. Even Derek jumped when Lydia barked half the time; the thing with Peter still bugged both of them and all three could never be found in the same room together without Talia or Mel present. The pack was damn awkward when they weren’t fighting something. But it was still someone in their corner when the metal hit the flame.

The twins were pack because they needed strength, because _Omega_ wasn't safe, and Lydia and Danny were on their coattails. But until Stiles was scrubbed, he had thought it could get better when they got a little further from the problems. And now was probably the worst possible time for pack-problems to show up, since Stiles was Jennifer-free and still not back to feeling like part of _anyone’s_ pack. He was afraid to ask if he pinged at all on Derek’s alpha-radar. Stiles was an honorary member, at best, and he clung to the status for all he was worth. Mentioning Boyd was a good way to get kicked out; of the pack, of the car, pick one.

To his surprise though, Derek didn’t yell at him for bringing it up. He didn’t even glare. Everything in the car just went quiet aside from the road noise as they drove. Stiles decided not to chase it any further and instead pried Derek’s hand from the steering wheel.

“I want that,” he muttered. It took effort, but Derek let him win. And it almost seemed to work. Derek took a breath for once and he tugged their entwined fingers back to rest on his thigh, content to drive one-handed. Stiles figured the subject had been dropped and counted himself lucky for it. He had been trying to help, not make things worse.

"Ethan and Aiden were puppets, just like I was. I get that. Too goddamn well. We're just Omegas who don't _belong_ anywhere. Can't trust... ” Derek spoke up almost a full minute later but he wasn’t very good at it. He was quiet, still angry, but calmer. “And Boyd... He _Knew_ it wasn't my choice. I didn’t get a chance to ask my family to forgive me. I don't see why the Argents should be forgiven for that."

The weight of it felt like it could flatten Stiles to the seat, like he couldn’t move for a week if he let it. He couldn’t take his eyes off Derek’s profile then, watching the weird flashes of light through the windshield splash across his face as they passed other cars and flashing city lights.

“Then don’t,” he said. “You don’t have to forgive anybody, or forget anything. Just... maybe stop letting them win, control you like this? That’s what the wolf’s for, right?”

Derek looked back at Stiles then, surprise clear on his face. “What?”

“You always come back calmer after you walk around as a wolf. Like you’re more _you_. Like you’ve got it back. The wolf’s your zen, man,” said Stiles. “The stuff with the Argents, that’s the human side, messing you up like it did Peter.”

His brow furrowed as Derek looked back out at the road. “You’ve got it backwards.”

“No, I don’t,” said Stiles. If Derek could be stubborn, he could be too. He tugged on their hands to make him pay attention. “I’ve seen what it does to you. The wolf is your control, man. Let’s just go out to the woods and you go do your thing and this shit with Chris won’t bug you like this. You’ll be able to turn it off anyway, all this ragey brooding and... yeah.”

Derek actually cracked a grin. “Really? You want to go to the woods _now_?”

“Yes. Woods. _Go_.”

“But what about the ice cream you promised them?” The taunt was met by a frustrated grunt.

“Seriously, dude? Ice cream is like the _only_ thing in your freezer. I don’t think they’re gonna starve while we’re gone,” said Stiles. That got an almost-smile that time. Stiles collapsed back against the seat as the tension eased off from Derek. “How is it even possible that I know the contents of your fridge better than you do. Come on.”

 

***

The loft was quiet after Stiles talked Derek out into the rain to chase after ice cream. Talia was grateful; for the silence, for Stiles’ perceptive attention to her son’s moods, for Derek’s quiet determination to keep Stiles happy, for the rain that kept the city sounds muted. Derek’s frustration and hurt had dug at Talia, no matter how hard she tried to understand them. The woman was tired and surrounded by broken things she couldn’t fix and she needed the moment’s peace. She was wired, waiting for word on Gerard, and the pull of her old pack demanded action instead of diplomacy. Negotiating between Derek and the Argents from that kind of a razor’s edge would not end well. Talia leaned against her knees, eyeing the floor under her boots and considering tumbling onto the rug - _seriously, Peter? Shag? But it_ does _look comfortable._ \- for a nap or a good cry, one of the two. She didn’t, far too aware of Chris’ presence in the chair beside hers.

“I am sorry for that,” he said after a long quiet. It surprised her and Talia looked up at him, an eyebrow arched. Chris motioned toward the empty couch.

“That. Maybe I didn’t start the fight with the kid. But I never backed off of it once it was going, either,” he said. “I never thought it would matter.”

Talia’s lips pressed into a grim line and she nodded. “The ironic thing is, he and I are wolves. Yet you’re the one who was trained,” she observed mildly. “We can hear the dog-whistle but you respond to it.”

There was another quiet and Chris eventually nodded. “Fairly accurate, actually.”

Talia rolled her eyes and gave a huff of dry amusement. She shook her head and sat up a little straighter, clasping her hands in front of her as a centering point. “Well. At least we know you’re trainable,” she said.

“Okay, that’s enough...” began Chris, sore enough without a wolf getting digs in. Talia smirked at him.

“What? It’s true. You were taught one way to see the world. You’ll learn another if you want to, now that you know you weren’t seeing everything to it.”

The man nodded, slow but accepting. “It’s fair to say I have been the last month or so, yeah.”

“And a New Year began, right in the middle of it,” said Talia. “That’s not for nothing, I think.”

Chris stared at her, surprise edging the man’s features.

“What?” Talia asked. He frowned at her.

“I just... I don’t understand,” he said. “Derek has faced maybe a fraction of what you’ve seen. Not to say it’s been some kind of walk in the park since he came back, but the stuff you had with Hutchinson makes it look like one. Just from what Gerard was telling us? His stories, added to what you told us the night you showed up... You shouldn’t be here at all. Hell, I shouldn’t. Derek just wants to kick my ass, and I’m sure he deserves it. But I don’t understand how you don’t want to see me _dead_.”

Talia’s brow furrowed, a frown creeping in. “Gerard lies more than he says anything worth hearing,” she said quickly. “Yes, there was enough truth to what he said to make me angry, but they were still lies. He wasn’t there. He doesn’t know what he caused. I adapt. He doesn't.”

“So you’re _not_ angry? With me, or Allison, for any of it?” Chris’ tone was incredulous, because he knew that was an impossible suggestion.

“Derek wasn’t wrong,” Talia said tightly. “Your family has been a curse. But that doesn’t mean I have to let it remain one. We don’t. He doesn’t. That’s what I put my energy into worrying about. And I think, - I hope - as he comes to understand what you’ve helped build, he’ll see that.”

“Is it actually _impossible_ for you to give a straight answer to anything?” Chris asked dryly. “Or is it just how you piss people off?” At her raised brow, Chris pointed again to the couch that no longer held her son. “That. That was anger. That was justified. Yes or no, is he alone in that?”

“No,” said Talia. She met Chris’ gaze when she said it, her tone enough to show the truth of it. “But anger doesn’t control my life. It’s _one_ emotion. Of many. He’ll figure that out, too.”

He stared back at her for a long moment before Chris finally nodded, accepting the answer. “Thank you.”

With an amused grin, Talia nodded back. He stood up and she watched, concern flashing briefly. He ignored her and made his way to the kitchen.

“Can I get you something?” she called after him. The last place Derek would want an Argent hanging around was in his kitchen, but there were battles Talia really didn’t feel like picking sometimes. Chris just shook his head.

“I know how to make an ice pack,” he said. Talia sighed and stood up to follow him. She reached him as Chris opened the freezer door. He just stared for a moment, expression annoyed. Talia peeked around the door at him, curious. She started laughing as Chris pulled out a pint of ice cream to use in place of an ice pack.

“I told you that was bullshit,” said Chris. Talia nodded and took the ice cream from him to put it back.

“And I still don’t care,” she said. “They needed to be somewhere else for awhile.”

Talia pushed Chris gently away from the refrigerator and kept him back from it as she started poking around for the ingredients to an ice pack. Not even a bag of peas. The refrigerator was even more useless - and slightly more questionable - than the contents of the freezer. Chris gave her the cranky look that said _I Told You So_ even though he didn’t say it out loud this time. Talia shook her head at him.

“Just don’t.”

“Sorry,” said Chris. Surprised, Talia tilted her head at him, wondering if she had imagined it. She shooed him back out of the kitchen area, a hand at his shoulder to pull some of the pain that couldn’t be chased away by a non-existent ice-pack. He stopped moving when he realized what she was up to.

“You don’t have to do that,” he told her.

“No, but I can,” she replied. Chris stared at her, openly confused. Talia would have laughed if she wasn’t already tired of the subject he wouldn’t seem to let go of. She pointed him toward the chair he had abandoned earlier. “Just go rest if you won’t sleep.”

The confusion didn’t go away but Chris’ expression turned somewhat comical. “Was that a threat?” he asked, amused.

“Don’t think I won’t call Mel,” returned Talia, smirking. Chris narrowed his eyes at her before he turned to go sit down.

 

***


	26. Chapter 26

"What the hell do you mean you're at the preserve." Scott didn’t actually ask a question. It was a statement of _fact_ that his best friend had _lost his freaking mind_ and Scott was about six seconds away from kicking his ass. _Through_ the cell phones that connected them. He could do it, he would figure out how, and he would do it. He could practically hear Stiles blinking at him.

"Uh. Ya know, what I _said_? Pretty much what I meant," said Stiles. Which meant that Stiles was probably standing in front of a borrowed car, on the side of the road, at the preserve, at just after midnight. With Derek out of his immediate sight for what had to be the first time in a month. None of this said anything like _good idea_ to Scott and he usually got glared at by Stiles for those good ideas he did get. Scott stood up from the couch and started flinging couch cushions aside to hunt up where his jacket and shoes had disappeared to.

"But- why?" It was honestly the best Scott had at the moment. Stiles had lost his mind and Derek had let him.

"Because it was that or Derek was gonna kill something," said Stiles, as though that was actually a valid reason to do anything. Werewolves killed things, and Scott reasoned that Stiles was just going to have to get used to that idea if he was dating one. It was no excuse to go around taunting Gerard Argent, and Scott was fairly certain that hunting Gerard would be the only reason Derek would have for leaving Stiles standing on his own in the dark at the preserve. Human bait who couldn’t see in the dark.

Scott stopped and waved out the window, as if Stiles were standing right in front of him to understand. "But Gerard-"

"So? He's after Allison, not us," Stiles interrupted him. The guy was determined not to get his feathers ruffled, in that way he got when he was trying to keep Scott’s eyes from turning red. Scott decided that killing his best friend sounded like a really _good idea_ just because then at least it would be for Stiles’ own good. Derek apparently made him _stupid_ and Scott knew it could only get worse.

"Right,” he said slowly, speaking to the distracted ten-year-old that his friend had reverted into. “No big deal that _Jennifer's_ after you two. Riding around as _Gerard’s_ extra _soul-twin_..."

Scott heard Stiles’ jaw click shut and he stopped breathing for a second. Then it all rushed back out. "...shit."

"Yeah," agreed Scott. “Are you guys gonna leave now or-”

Stiles interrupted him again. "Uh. I gotta go find Derek. I'll call you later."

"Stiles! What-" The call ended and Scott dropped the phone on the couch, too frustrated to deal with the annoying thing. Everyone was always after him to answer the phone - _he got busy, okay, he couldn’t always answer it!_ \- and then they always hung up on him. "Damnit!"

Cora sat beside the not-quite-thrown phone, her head in her hands from sheer disappointment. She had heard everything Scott had and she knew her brother well enough to understand Scott’s frustration so she didn’t bother to ask. Scott struggled into his shirt and found his jacket where he found the shirt. He realized then he had already had a very long day. Cora kicked his shoes closer to him and stood up, set the couch pillows calmly back in order.

The door down the hall opened and Scott angled to where he could see it. Allison and Isaac appeared, looking about as put-together as he and Cora. Isaac actually looked a little more put together than Allison and Scott smirked at the guy’s determination for appearances.

"Scott?" Allison called down the hall. Scott flicked a lamp on so she could see him; no fair the wolves having the advantage over their hunter in her own house.

"Yeah?"

Allison noticed, nodded and then jerked her head toward the door. "We gotta go..."

Scott snorted. They were off to save Stiles and Derek yet again. "Yeah, no kidding..."

Isaac didn’t seem to follow and made a face at him. "Allison's gotta go meet Gerard."

That derailed Scott’s concern for making sure Derek and Stiles got their stupid asses out of the preserve.

"Where?" he asked. Allison looked nervous and hesitated on the answer.

"Nemeton," she said. She didn’t like the place any more than Scott or Stiles did. Scott stared at her for almost a minute.

"Holy shit." He startled himself out of it and only just barely remembered to grab his phone from the couch before herding his pack out of the apartment.

 

****

 

Draped over her knees in the chair, Talia Hale pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to will back the headache forming. "Are you kidding?" she asked into the phone.

"Nope, that's what he said,” reported Melissa. Talia heard a car door slam on Mel’s end. “Gerard asked for Allison's help getting rid of Our Favorite Hitchhiker. _That's_ our opening. That's what we get."

Frustrated, Talia glanced over at Chris. The man sat a chair away, listened to the side of the conversation he could hear. He was a mess of bruises but he somehow escaped without a black eye so he could stare at her with the look on his face that was so uniquely Chris Argent: pissed off, concerned, smug, and bored all at once. Talia sighed and shook her head, her attention went back to the phone.

"So they're at the Nemeton?" she asked. Chris startled, _smug_ and _bored_ dropped from his expression.

"Got it in one, Talia!” cheered a very sarcastic, very unhappy Melissa. “Brilliant deduction or just psychic?"

Talia stood up to find her keys. Then it hit her. "Neither one. Stiles and Derek left an hour ago... with my car."

"Not a problem. Scott said Stiles told him they're already _there_ ," said Melissa with a false cheer that was somehow borderline murderous. Talia finally fully understood the woman’s annoyance. “So we’ll be picking you up then?”

"You're not allowed to hang out with Stiles anymore. The rest of us can only handle so much sass," said Talia. She settled back onto the edge of her chair since they had to wait for a ride before they could go anywhere. "You're not allowed to kill our children, either."

"The jury is still out on that one. It’s hovering between matching death sentences and making their lives forever miserable," said Mel. “I guess we’ll see how I’m feeling on the other side of this mess.”

Talia huffed and shook her head. Mel ended the call on the promise that they would be there to pick them up and Talia pocketed her phone. She looked to Chris, the man waiting impatiently for a report.

“I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask that you stay here,” she said. Chris’ reply to that was to stand up. Talia smirked up at him. “Mel and Peter are on their way to get us.”

“I told you not to let them take the car,” said Chris sourly. Talia nodded, winced.

“I shouldn’t have,” she agreed. “They went to the preserve.”

Chris spent easily the next two minutes ranting about stupid predictable teenagers. Talia didn’t bother pointing out that Derek wasn’t one; the complaints wouldn’t have changed at all.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and in related news, this puppy is finished!! Now you get to hound the beta.
> 
> and omg what's with the goddamn dog puns. *facepalm*


	27. Chapter 27

If it wasn’t so freaking cold and damp out, which made traipsing through the woods on two shoed feet a very dangerous thing in and of itself, Stiles could have kicked his own ass for this suggestion. Yes, Derek needed it. But maybe he didn’t need it quite so badly as they both needed to not be anywhere near Gerard Argent or his darach-hitchhiker. The woods were always bad-guy central lately and they really should have thought it through a little better. Stiles could kick himself for not just making Derek go park at his house, because his mind wandered far too easily to the various things he would have rather done there to calm down a stressed out Derek. All of them involved being warm. Very, very warm.

Stiles tripped on a moldy, slippery, leaf-covered branch he hadn’t seen in the narrow beam of his flashlight-illuminated path and caught himself on a mossy, slimy, tree, muttering curses under his breath about everything _winter_ still being _cold_. A shadow not far off made Stiles jump back from the tree and he waved the flashlight around.

"Mr. Stilinski?" A very familiar, very unwanted voice jerked Stiles’ attention to the left and off behind him a good ten yards. Of course Gerard was in the woods. Stalking him. Like a creeper. Carrying a sword like it was some kind of hiking stick. _Goddamnit_... Stiles stared at the hunter in the full light of the flashlight. Black streaked across his face like blood and Stiles gagged, pulled a face. He was suddenly very glad he had met Tal and Rowan instead of Jennifer if she made her personal conquests _that_ gross.

"Shit..." he coughed out. Gerard gave the smug grin and waved toward him, which made Stiles dodge back another step.

"Take a walk with me," said Gerard. The croaky voice wasn’t quite right, just an octave too high. Stiles started walking carefully backwards just to put more space between them before he could turn his back and run like a screaming little girl away from a hunter possessed by Jennifer Blake.

"Nah. I don't particularly like _either of you_ so I'm not onboard with that plan,” he replied. He waved back at Gerard. “Pass. Bye."

"Don't be rude." A voice that was most definitely Jennifer’s spoke up just a foot away from him and Stiles jumped. He controlled the flail and turned, shining the flashlight beam on the shade who had lived in his head for a week and still left nightmares.

"Holy hell! Don't! How'd you do that?! Go back!" For lack of anything more effective, Stiles held up his hands in a cross. He was stuck, Gerard within a stone’s throw of his back and Jennifer standing in her creepy not-actually-a-ghost corporeal form right in front of him. He preferred his chances with Gerard and backed up blindly. Jennifer smiled at him, crossed her arms and drummed her fingers along her jacket sleeve.

"Would you like to see what else I can do now?" she asked.

Stiles shook his head. "Shit no."

"Then _walk with us_ ," said Jennifer. “We’re obviously all going to the same place.”

Stiles didn’t bother to point out that they weren’t because he was too focused on getting the hell out of where he was. The _Don’t Run from Bears_ approach hadn’t worked. This time he ran.

Stiles wasn’t sure he had heard Jennifer say anything but it sounded like she called him an idiot, whether that was actually out loud or just in his head he couldn’t be sure. He kept running. And then he was knocked off his feet. Something hit him in the back of the ribs while simultaneously pushing him up into the air from the soles of his shoes, mid-stride on a dark run. Stiles landed face first in leaves and dirt with his shoulder against a tree and felt completely dazed. He couldn’t focus, could barely see where his flashlight had flown off to, and spent way too long trying to remember his own name.

It rushed back to him when someone grabbed the collar of his jacket and shirts to pull Stiles to his feet.

"Walk." Gerard gave the orders that time and Stiles scowled at him. The old man shook Stiles by the neck, an effective reminder that, sick or not, he was still a werewolf. The teenager was too far out of his weight class to argue. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t snark because Stiles’ mouth did not have any relationship at all with the logic-center of his brain.

"...Yes _ma'am_."

It got him backhanded by a messed-up scary werewolf who thankfully didn’t know how to use his claws yet. But Stiles smirked at it anyway just for the small - miniscule, really - victory of annoying Gerard Argent enough to crack the usually formal and regimented control. Not a _smart_ thing to do with a sick _werewolf-thing_ , but it made him feel better.

 

***

There were sounds in the forest that shouldn’t be there. Human sounds. Car doors slammed in the distance. And then Derek heard Stiles’ voice, quiet, but definitely Stiles. The lying little jerk had promised not to leave the car... but then Derek’s pointy ears twitched and he turned his head toward the voices. It wasn’t just Stiles. Gerard and Jennifer.

Derek swept around a tree and turned toward the voices. He couldn’t tell where Stiles was. He needed to know and he couldn’t just sense him. He could tell that Ethan and Aiden were on the way, worried and fighting mad about something, but Derek couldn’t find Stiles the same way. The distracting proof that Stiles _wasn’t pack_ only made Derek angrier and he growled as he ran.

A strange silence hit the forest and for a split second, Derek couldn’t even hear the crunch of leaves under his claws. Then all sound was back, and a louder one overshadowed the night noise. Something unnatural, like air rushing in to fill the void left behind a jet after take-off. Stiles’ voice eventually made it through, much quieter, and then stopped. Derek ran in the blind direction he had picked. Eventually he would catch Stiles’ scent if he managed to find the trail back to where Derek had heard his voice.

 

***

 

The noise in the forest startled Isaac and Scott into a dead stop.

"What the hell was that?" asked Isaac. He shuffled with the backpack awkwardly. Scott shook his head. Cora looked around but didn't have any ideas either.

"What?" asked Allison.

Isaac looked over at Allison, somehow more shocked than he had been from the noise itself. "You didn't hear that?"

She shook her head. "No..."

Scott turned his attention back to the woods, listening, trying to pick up any sign of Stiles or Derek.

"It was like... Pressure. Like an explosion or a door slam," he told her. It seemed as likely a direction as any so Scott waved the others toward where he had heard the sound.

"In the woods?" asked Allison.

"Yeah," said Scott, distracted.

Allison checked the crossbow she carried and decided it wasn't quite enough. She pulled a silver knife from her boot as back-up. "Not good."

Cora looked over at Allison, eyebrow raised. "Nope," she agreed.

 

****


	28. Chapter 28

There was no way to miss the SUV Stiles and Derek had abandoned. It was parked in by Allison’s car to the front of it and a county vehicle and trailer right behind it. As Peter lined yet another car up behind the trailer, the sheriff looked back at them from the seat of a quad off-roader. Melissa climbed out of the car, brow furrowed.

"What is-"

Stilinski sat up and crossed his arms, shrugged. "I was thinking on it at work. Blake has her MO. She keeps coming back here. I figured these might be useful and had them ready to go just in case."

"It's county property," said Chris, smug as he moved to inspect the ATVs. The sheriff smiled back at him.

"So's the preserve. All good."

Peter rolled his eyes as he noticed one important, overlooked fact about Stilinski’s forward-thinking. “You only brought two.”

Mel quickly climbed into the seat behind the sheriff and tucked an arm around him to claim her territory. Talia and the injured Chris had a stare-off over who got to drive the remaining off-roader and it looked like the werewolf was winning. Stilinski looked back at Peter, confused.

“The station only has two,” he said. “You have a problem with running?”

“I’m still stuck on two legs, not four,” said Peter. He aimed a grouchy glare at his sister but Talia just shrugged. She had won the right to drive the ATV and wasn’t giving it away to her brother. Chris was having a hard enough time figuring out how to climb on the back without aggravating his shoulder and Melissa wished again she had tried harder to make Chris stay behind. She stomped down on her nursing side and reminded herself to look out for her pack. She looked from Peter to Chris and back.

“You’ll still get there faster running than you would trying to go quading with Chris. I don’t see that going well,” she said, a smirk on her lips. Peter and Chris exchanged a glare over Talia’s shoulder. It took a moment but the out-voted werewolf scowled and peeled out of his jacket to go for a run as the ATVs started up.

 

***

 

Stiles didn’t _know_ where they were going but they were following the river channel below and he could _guess_. He was in no hurry to get there. He trailed as much behind Gerard as he could get away with, mindful of the darach and her _zapping_ powers walking nearby. He made noise every so often, yelped if Jennifer got too close to him, bickered at Gerard, anything that he thought might catch Derek’s attention. The wolf was out there somewhere. Stiles could only intentionally trip and fall in the dark so many times before it stopped being worth it. If Derek’s fuzzy ass didn’t show up soon, Stiles was probably actually never going to talk to him again and that would probably bother Stiles more than it would bother Derek. But it was still a valid threat to his wolvlihood since it would have happened on Derek’s watch.

“Wait.” Gerard stopped just ahead of him and Stiles reeled back to keep distance between them. The hunter pointed the sheathed sword he carried out somewhere in the trees beyond Stiles’ easy sight and he angled a little to find out what the problem was.

“Is that _Talia_?” Gerard managed to sound hopeful and evil at the same time. It gave Stiles the creeps and he edged further away while trying to move closer to what he hoped was a friendly wolf. He saw the red eyes reflecting in the shadows as the wolf stalked slowly toward them. Stiles was somewhere between relieved and suddenly panicked; yes, Derek was supposed to help him, but really, _no_ , Derek was not supposed to be anywhere near Jennifer and Gerard together. They could throw a rock and hit the Nemeton from where they now stood and that was too dangerous. Stiles and Derek shouldn't be in the same spot around Jennifer Blake and the Nemeton. Stiles darted forward to get between them before Jennifer darach-blasted the wolf.

“Look, can we not be pointing things at wolves right now?” said Stiles. It hit him about two seconds too late that he had just shoved Gerard in the shoulder on his way by, and in so doing committed a big no-no of his own against a less friendly wolf entirely. Jennifer laughed at him as Gerard actually growled. Old-man-growl was nowhere near as impressive as Derek’s. Stiles held his hands up, looked from face to face. “Can we just go back to the walking until we get wherever we’re supposedly all going? Wolfy security guard over there will walk along and no trouble.”

“We don’t need wolves watching the Nemeton. It’s perfectly safe,” said Jennifer. She looked over at Gerard and the hunter reached out to shove Stiles aside. He dodged back a step.

“It’s Derek, not Talia,” he said to Jennifer. “You sure you don’t want him to stick around?”

Stiles wasn’t a complete idiot. When he had been the first to show up instead of Allison, he landed right back in the target zone Tal and Rowan had put him in two weeks earlier. Allison was just lucky Scott drove like an old grandma and that Stiles was stupid, otherwise she’d be the darach’s new meatsuit. Now Stiles was stuck with stall tactics and adding Derek to the bait-hook until something better came along. And it seemed to work, since Jennifer caught Gerard’s shoulder to keep him back. She smiled at Stiles, one eyebrow raised.

“That depends on if he plans to cooperate or not,” she said. “Which I would guess depends on _you_.”

“What, you want a volunteer or something?” said Stiles. “Fine. I volunteer. I am so done. On the _condition_ that you’ve got some way of taking over this time that doesn’t involve me kissing _that_ -” He pointed at Gerard. “-to catch your stupid moth. Because if that’s your plan, no deal. Fire’s fine, but _that’s_ not how I’m going out.”

“No moth,” said Jennifer, smirking at him. “We use the tree.”

_Avoid the tree at all costs_ , reasoned Stiles to himself, _Forever_. Good to know. “Fine.”

Gerard tilted his head. “Is that what lying sounds like?” the old man asked. Stiles stepped toward him, fully intent on punching the old man in the neck. He owed him _twenty_ anyway. But the wolf growling ten yards behind him kept him back. He shoved Argent a little but didn’t hit him.

“No, you asshole, it’s what _freaking out_ sounds like, okay? That’s not freakin’ easy what I just did,” said Stiles. “So _shut up_ and start looking for the damn tree.”

The boost from the bravado only lasted a few seconds. Once Gerard Argent’s expression changed from surprise to indignant rage, Stiles knew it was time to cry wolf and run like hell. He took off toward Derek and got ten feet before he fell on his face in the mud. He saw Derek running for Gerard and reached out to tell him to go the other way, _go back, get help, get the hell away from the obsessive darach and hunter combo._

Instead what happened was terrifying and _never_ to be repeated, but because it happened in Stiles’ life that probably meant it was going to happen _again_ sooner or later. The ground under his hand crumbled and started to slide away. Like an earthquake split the ground, mud and leaves and tree branches and bugs and everything else slowly sliding into the crack, but there was no shaking to trigger it. Stiles scrambled to his feet as the ground started to liquefy under him and he launched himself toward the red-eyed wolf standing stock-still and stupefied on the other side. He missed and went down with the cave-in.

 

***

 

Four feet scrambled back from the sudden collapse of their slice of the hillside. Derek could only watch as every square foot of forest floor around Stiles seemed to turn to muddy water and sink down over a cliff that _hadn’t been there_ before Stiles’ hand hit the ground.

_Stiles_ had done that. This was the Druid-voodoo from that morning, in action. It carried him away from Jennifer and Gerard but it was no less dangerous. The kid could suffocate on leaves, he could drown in mud, he could break something vital in the rush of rock and dirt and _freaking trees_ that were sliding toward the river channel.

Derek’s instinctual fear of whatever power Stiles had kept from the darach was nowhere near the fear he felt watching him disappear in the dark. Before he had any idea how to help, Derek was bounding down into the cavern the untrained power had created, chasing after Stiles completely blind.

 

***

The sound that rumbled through the forest was odd enough that Talia stopped the ATV and let the engine idle. Not far away, Peter seemed to have heard it too, because the man didn’t usually lose his footing in a race; he liked to win too much to allow himself that frailty. Peter staggered against a tree and looked around, catching his sister’s eye.

“What was that?” Talia asked. Peter shook his head at her. Behind them, Melissa and Stilinski idled their engine.

“What was what?” asked the sheriff. Talia looked back at him, surprised.  He frowned, shrugged.  “Sounded maybe like a landslide?”

“You didn’t hear it?”

“It was like a... _boom_ ,” added Peter, still winded. Talia looked over her shoulder at Chris in silent askance. He shook his head.

“What was it?” asked Melissa. Talia shook her head. Peter started running again. Talia took a breath.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She kicked the quad back into gear to chase after Peter. “But we’re headed for it.”

 

***


	29. Chapter 29

The slide through the river had taken care of only half the mud that clung to Stiles, with the small downside that it was freezing cold and Stiles didn’t have a fur coat. Derek couldn’t give him one so when Stiles climbed out of the water he shoved the chattering teenager into a pile of comparatively-dry riverbed rocks and lay across his back to keep him down.

“What the hell-” complained Stiles between clacking teeth. Derek nipped at his neck to make him rethink moving and talking. He heard ATVs at the top of the cliff that had been a slope out of the river channel and, thinking to draw hunters toward Gerard, let out a howl. He and Stiles were well hidden by the mess of the cave-in around the river channel and Gerard could deal with the hunters himself this time.

“What are you doi- holy he- Derek!” Stiles hissed at him, trying to scramble to his feet. He coughed on damp dust and went back down. His only triumph was to make it to his side instead of his stomach but Derek just shoved him over to sit on his chest instead. Stiles shoved at the wolf but reluctantly accepted the heat-source. He held a dirty hand up to his own mouth, fingers marking up his nose as he signalled for Derek to keep quiet. “Don’t do that! Are you trying-”

Stiles was silenced by the sound of an answering howl, and then a second one, not far off. Derek’s ears pricked up and turned, his nose working at the still dusty air around them. Stiles let out a surprised laugh. Derek glared down at him. He looked back up innocently.

“What? I texted _Lydia_ after Scott texted _me_ that Gerard was out here. You needed back-up,” said Stiles in his own defense. Derek looked pointedly to the _cliff_ that had formerly been a _slope_ leading down to a river bed, as though Stiles had somehow missed the proof of his own capabilities as _back-up_.

Stiles spluttered. “Don’t lookit me like that! Just because you’re a wolf right now doesn’t mean I can’t see that face. It’s not my _fault_.”

Derek sneezed, allergic to the bullshit Stiles was spreading. He turned toward the river and howled again to let the echo call Ethan and Aiden away from the hunters’ ATVs up above them.

 

***

 

The plan this time was much more straightforward: get rid of the monster that had once been Gerard Argent. For Talia and Peter, it was justice, a vendetta. For Casey and Melissa, it was to protect what was theirs, everyone at risk in their territory and not just their own pack.

For Chris, though, it was so much more complicated. Inside the monster, at the heart of it, was his father. His _family_. But the man was the poison at the core of the family tree, he had ruthlessly allowed the deaths of his own flesh and blood, ordered the deaths of innocents. And now he was a puppet to a darach who had sacrificed the lives of children, good men and women, for some self-serving greater-good. It was a combination that couldn't be allowed to stand.

The problem was that Gerard seemed to have caught on. He and Jennifer together had enough power to tumble the ATV that chased them, nearly taking out half of Scott’s pack in the same wave of force. Stilinski and Melissa made it out from under the off-roader in one piece, but they were _breakable_. Responsibility to the kids made them reconsider chasing a darach on foot. They hung back and let the wolves give chase, with trees for cover. Alison and her bow stayed back with them at Scott's orders after watching Gerard target the non-wolves first.

Chris stayed with Talia and they chased further into the preserve. After Scott started yelling at his mother to stay back, twin tawny wolves showed up to help. Then the big black wolf Chris knew to be Derek appeared with them, and the three four-legged beasts ran circles to herd Gerard in with the others. They got them to the top of a steep hill that looked down on the river channel that ran through the preserve. Run-off from the snowy mountains would flood the channel in the spring, but it was little more than a stream in the winter. It wasn't a big drop to rock and sand bed, but it was big enough for an old man like Gerard to think twice about.

Cora got to him first. The teenager ran and, fangs and claws in play, she tackled him. They both went over the hill. Chris swore and jumped down from the ATV as Talia rolled it to a stop. The hill was too steep and all loose dirt; the heavy quad would just sink and roll. He ran down the hillside on Scott and Isaac's heels.

By the time they got down to the channel, Gerard was trying to drown the smaller wolf under the water. Chris saw what was happening, didn't hesitate from confusion as Scott did. He shoved his father into the freezing water and held him pinned under a knee and both hands. Derek barrelled into him but he had caught himself enough that he didn’t break the pin Chris had on Gerard.

"Help her!" he barked back at Scott as the no-longer wolfed Cora sluggishly tried to crawl back from the water's edge. Scott didn’t have to be told twice and was already moving once he saw it was safe to get near the fight without endangering Cora.

It bought them very little time. Gerard -or Jennifer, who knew which they were dealing with at this point - pushed back with supernatural force that Chris and his injured shoulder had no chance against. He landed in a heap against the dirt, climbing vines and weeds of the side of the channel. One of the wolves was tossed away next as Gerard walked out of the water, soaking wet and angry. Chris had to use the angle of the hill for support but he made it to his feet to try to draw Gerard’s attention. Talia and Peter Hale stood nearby, the wolves pacing around them and afraid to be thrown again. A soaked and muddy Stiles peeked up over the edge of what looked like a mudslide not far up the channel from the stand-off.

“You have to know this won’t end well,” said Gerard. The old bastard was smiling and his voice didn’t sound right. A moment later one of the wolves yelped as the shade of Jennifer Blake reappeared near them. The black wolf dropped back, taking up a more defensive position between the undead druid and Stiles.

“You’re right,” said Talia quietly. “But that’s no guarantee for whom.”

Jennifer narrowed her eyes at Talia’s bold words and looked like she was about to cause damage. Chris shoved away from the wall to somehow get between them but froze when he saw someone new enter the fray from the hillside above.

“Talia, don’t antagonize the woman,” said Alan Deaton. Stiles disappeared behind his mud-pile with a chirped “ _Shit!_ ” while the others tried to sort out if they wanted to follow the kid’s example or stick around to fight a losing battle with a pissed off druid. Deaton approached Talia about the same time as Chris managed to get that far.

“What do you want, Jennifer?” asked Deaton. Chris scoffed, fairly certain he could answer that for the man. Still, he let them worry about the shade and eyed his soaked and steaming-mad father not far behind her. They were making a mistake worrying about the hitchhiker, but Chris was in no physical condition to argue with them about it.

Jennifer crossed her arms and glowered from Deaton to where Peter had taken to not-quite-hiding behind his sister. “I want _him_ dead, to start with.”

Peter rolled his eyes at the attitude and silently mocked her.

“That’s not something we can do for you,” said Deaton. “Maybe next time you make it back around to this realm you can add it to the list if he’s still alive.”

Peter looked at his sister’s former emissary, fully offended by the invitation.

“I have no reason to leave this realm yet,” said Jennifer, her attention returning to Deaton. “I don’t plan to.”

“Your host is a dying old man who can’t even manage his wolf,” Deaton replied. “You’re better off leaving to start over.”

“No. He can be healed.”

“Not by you. Not while you’re there.”

“I don’t intend to stay,” said Jennifer, smug. “I have a volunteer.”

“Ohmygod are you kidding,” came a small squeak from the general direction of Stiles’ mud-pile. Blake smiled broadly.

“I promised Gerard I could heal him. Stiles and I will take care of that, first thing,” she said. Chris had enough. He took a chance and stepped forward, the injured, ragged hunter no one expected could be capable of trouble at the moment. And it let him drag an electric-charged and sparking baton harshly across the druid’s ribs. The shade had a solid form, a projection from her hold on Gerard and the power he had picked up from the Nemeton. The cattleprod to the side was felt by Gerard and the old man doubled over like any wolf would to it, even as Blake disappeared.

"I can only handle so much bullshit at a time," said Chris. He looked over at his father, the werewolf still twitching from the baton blow to Jennifer, sparks shooting along the man's soaked clothing. Gerard glared at Chris.

"You accomplished nothing. _Nothing_!" The bellow echoed slightly in the channel.

"Gerard, Blake lied to you. You have to know that," said Talia. "She can't cure you. The wolf is dying. That's not something anyone can fix for you."

Gerard didn't take that news well and there was a harsh sizzling in the area around the group. The energy caught and held and Gerard was about to flatten them all with the same force that had overturned the ATV on Melissa and Casey earlier. It was instead met by another wall of energy from Deaton, one that sent Gerard stumbling back toward the water and away from the others.

Allison appeared above them, her bow out and ready, the sheriff and Melissa with her. Peter paced just as restlessly as the three wolves, moving behind Isaac and Scott and circling around behind Chris. Isaac shoved at Peter for messing with his backpack, everyone stressed by the standoff that resulted from the clash of magics they couldn’t touch. That seemed to give Stiles some courage and Chris swore as the teenager started out from his hiding place to cross the water and hide behind the full pack instead of just the three wolves.

Suddenly there was movement and Chris’ attention flicked to the more immediate threat as Gerard turned and ran up the channel, away from the pack. Peter threw something past Chris’ peripheral vision and it hit Gerard’s back just as one of Alison’s arrows met its target as well. Gerard Argent went up in red flames and smoke even as he staggered down the river bed. The pack chased and Gerard fell into the sand and rocks, steered away from the water by the snapping jaws of Derek and the twin wolves.

 

***


	30. Chapter 30

Allison, Stilinski and Melissa ran down from the hillside. The sheriff checked on the shivering wet mess that was his son, muttered something about pneumonia and shrugged out of his jacket to put the kid in it. That was the only brief distraction he allowed himself. They turned to watch as Talia and Deaton approached the burning body. Deaton had caught up to Gerard first, Talia at his shoulder, and he pressed the former alpha back and away from her prey. Talia snarled at him but relented. Deaton threw something at the ground when they were within reach and Stiles startled as a shimmering field surrounded the two by the creekside a moment later.

"What was that?" Stilinski whispered to his son.

"Mountain ash... like what we did for the spells at the tree. They- Deaton just contained them. Nobody in, nobody out," said Stiles under his breath.

The fire was killed quickly, Deaton too aware of the gathered Hale clan's sensitivity to fire. Melissa hung on to Casey’s arm, holding the man back as much as keeping herself a shield from the sudden magic lighting up the river bed. Deaton kept a respectable distance from the pained and howling Gerard, his hands up and soft words chanting at the old hunter. Gerard fell silent then, his pain taking a back-seat to the more immediate crisis of the fact that his whole body was glowing. Bright white-yellow light that almost hurt to look at. Melissa had seen something similar in the root cellar below the Nemeton when Deaton transferred Jennifer Blake from Derek to the tree. Now there was no tree to syphon the energy and it just beamed from Gerard and bounced from the walls of the containing dome. Deaton seemed impervious to it and the spell intensified until Gerard was shouting in undignified pain once again. Then the light faded away.

Gerard lay on the ground at Deaton’s feet, passed out, burned from the molotov cocktail but otherwise unchanged by the magic. And then Melissa saw the little white moth flicking around the dome with them. It bounced off the shield and fluttered around.

“And the bitch is out. One less thing to worry about,” said Stiles. The teenager was visibly relieved and Melissa saw the sheriff catch the back of his son’s neck in a small show of support.

“She’s the moth?” Melissa asked. “Jennifer?”

Stiles nodded. “Anybody got a fly-swatter or something?”

Deaton broke the ashline then and Talia rushed forward. Melissa realized why the former alpha now carried Gerard’s sword and she chased after her.

“Talia! Stop!” she shouted. Everyone looked at Melissa, even a very irritated Talia responding to the alpha’s tone. Scott followed at his mother’s shoulder as they approached Talia. Melissa was suddenly intimidated by her friend, the anger on her face not something she had seen before.

“Don’t. Deaton took care of the problem,” said Melissa quietly. Chris caught up to them then, shaking his head.

“Getting the darach out didn’t solve anything,” he reminded her. Melissa looked over at Chris, surprised.

“He’s always going to be a pain in the ass,” Melissa said, nodding her agreement, “But now? He’s harmless now. Just as before.”

Chris looked at Melissa in complete disbelief. “That man has never been harmless. He never will be.”

Talia took that as her resumed permission and started toward Gerard again but Scott got in the way, earning such a glare that Melissa was suddenly quite glad her son had claws to defend himself.

 

***

 

Despite the threat of an angry former alpha, Scott blocked the path to the spazzing body. "I thought we were going to get Blake out... Call it done-"

"No. He's too dangerous." Talia shook her head and waved Scott out of the way. Chris risked life and limb to catch at Talia’s arm and tug the woman away. Melissa took the hint and moved to put herself between her son and the former head of the Hale pack. Scott scowled, frustrated. This wasn’t supposed to be this complicated; they had _won_ , Gerard was neutralized, it was done with. That was enough.

" _You_ made that, Scott,” said Chris harshly, angry but controlled by the distraction of pain and determination to work through it. “My father's in some sick limbo between wolf and kanima and negotiating with darachs to get out of it. That's on you. And it's on _me_ too. You don't have to approve it but you don't get to stand in the way of what has to be _done_."

Scott looked from Chris to Stiles and the large black wolf that kept him protected away from the still twitching body of Gerard. With Talia standing not far from him, that meant the wolf was Derek. Derek, the alpha Scott had strung along for months, manipulated and then physically, forcefully, used to create a monster. Twin wolves paced near him, growling and snapping impatiently from the tension, even though they knew very little about Gerard. Twins who had killed Boyd by _using Derek_ the same way Scott created Gerard.

And now Gerard was stronger, angrier, and just poison. There was no way to know how much of the power they had seen so far had come from Jennifer or from Gerard. Worse than that, there was no saving something that far gone. Scott nodded, reluctant, and backed out of the way again.

Quick movement beyond the group caught Scott's attention and he turned to see Allison stalk by them toward Gerard. He saw the knife in the woman's hand and let her go, called no attention to her determined purpose. She was Scott's pack, free to irritate the territorial alpha all she wanted and Scott would clean up the mess behind her. Allison was crouched at her grandfather's shoulder, knife at his throat, before Melissa noticed.

Scott shadowed his mom as she rushed to stop Allison.

"Mom! Don't," he hissed at her. Melissa knelt across from Allison, ready to move to help and protect the teenager in close quarters, but she stayed out of the way. Allison ignored her, intent instead on Gerard.

"You," Allison said as she glared down at her grandfather. The man was alert, in pain, pitiful, but he glared back. "You get no second chances. Not this time. You want to know why? By everything you taught me as a hunter, I am the one who calls the shots now, I give the orders and the commands. Not you, not my father."

"Just a _girl_ ," said Gerard, his voice raspy. "You need guidance... Training..."

"Not from you," said Allison. "So here's how it works. You go back to the hole we buried you in. You behave and you live. And when _Talia Hale_ wants you dead, _I'll_ see it's _arranged_."

Even Scott backed up a step from the determined intensity of Allison's promise. Melissa sat back as Allison eased out of Gerard’s easy reach. Scott looked up at Talia, seeing a reluctant agreement on the former alpha's face. She planted the tip of the sword in the ground ahead of her, her wrists draped over the hilt to lean against it and physically force the tension from the averted fight to fade.

 

***


	31. Chapter 31

Nobody wanted to carry Gerard. He was a bigger, bloodier, mess of black ooze than he had been when they first spotted him. In the low light from the parked ATV up on the hill, the burns didn’t look healthy, which wasn’t difficult considering he had been torched with explosive chemicals, but they were washed in black in addition to the usual red of blood. There was an arrow broken in his back, too, and nobody really wanted to start digging that out. Well, except for Peter, but Melissa knew better than to let that volunteer actually make good on his offer. So they waited until Melissa could get her new unwanted patient at least sitting up on his own power, let alone walking away.

Stilinski kept a respectable distance, kept himself between Gerard and Stiles. Just in case. Derek-the-wolf seemed to have the same idea and Stiles was getting slightly annoyed at the pair of them. The soaking wet, muddy Stiles who had a hard time glaring at them because of the loud clatter of his teeth.

“You should get back to the truck,” Talia told them. Stiles edged closer to her when she stopped near them, the werewolf much warmer a presence than his father could offer up.

“Nope. We-e-e-e all-ll-ll go. Nob-nobody’s get-ing pounce-ed by dru-ids,” chattered Stiles. Scott showed up then, making the simple mistake of walking by Stiles on his way to check on Allison and Melissa. Stiles didn’t even ask permission, just wrapped his friend in a big, unasked-for, wet and muddy hug around the shoulders. Scott reeled back, glared, and tolerated it as Stiles all but hid behind him trying to get warm. Talia looked to Casey, one eyebrow raised and he just shrugged back at her.

“It’s his own fault if he ends up in the hospital again,” said Casey.

“Not my fa-ault,” said Stiles. “Stupid lan-dslide.”

Stilinski caught Deaton glance over at them from not far away, eavesdropping but giving Stiles his distance. These woods weren’t usually prone to landslides, and Casey and Deaton had discussed what to look for after Stiles had blasted Gerard away from the tree. Apparently landslides were now on the list.

Casey was about to say something about that when there was a yelp from a startled Allison. The wolves started growling at the same time. The sheriff turned and looked back at where Melissa and Allison had been waiting for Gerard to get his feet under him. It was somewhat instinctive, his hand going right to the holster at his uniform belt. He saw Gerard on his feet and Melissa at knifepoint of a blade stolen from Allison and his service weapon was in his hand without hesitation. The rain clouds hadn’t broken up enough and it was too dark to take a shot now that Gerard wasn’t on the other end of ATV headlamps or conveniently _on fire_. He charged forward with Talia and Scott, the group crowding Gerard until he shouted at them to stay back.

Melissa was alert and aware, not panicked, and she caught Casey’s attention with a look. He could only hope he interpreted right and put out a hand to keep Talia back. He kept his weapon up and aimed at Gerard, waiting for a clear shot.

“This is stupid, Gerard,” said the sheriff. “You want to go to _prison_ instead of a nursing home, is that it?”

The threat was the distraction Melissa was looking for and she elbowed Gerard in the side of the ribs at one of the burns. He swore as Melissa dodged away from the knife, pushed to the ground away from him by one of the tawny wolves. Once she was safely out of the target zone, Stilinski fired off a round to add to the man’s misery. Gerard staggered back and Talia moved with him, driving him further away from the pack. Chris and Peter followed after her while the sheriff went to check on Melissa. She, however, was already on her feet, her attention on Talia and Gerard. The wolves were done with second chances.

Gerard tripped and fell out in the darkness, away from the light of the ATV above and just out of the non-wolves’ easy sight. Casey heard a scramble on the rocks and then it sounded like Gerard tripped again. When he and Melissa caught up, they found Talia kneeling on the ground beside Gerard. The woman’s eyes glowed red as she pushed Gerard over from where he lay in the water, the hilt of his own sword buried in his chest. The blade broke off as Talia shoved him on his back against the rocky riverbed. She left the sword where it was, but there was almost no reason. Between the close range aim of the bullet, the silver coating of the sword, and the way the man had fallen on it, he wasn’t breathing by the time Melissa checked on him.

“Wait...” Melissa asked into the quiet, confused by the dead body of a werewolf at her feet. “He shouldn’t be dead. He’s still... whole.”

Talia shook her head, stood to her feet and wrenched and sawed with the sword to pull it free. “Spinal cord severed. Can’t heal that.”

She rubbed the sword in the dirt, wedged the flat of what was left of the blade against a stone in the river bed and then snapped the remaining metal like it was nothing. Stilinski stared, momentarily concerned as the woman's eyes shone bright, alpha red in the overcast night. They faded to blue when she tossed the sword away.

Nobody moved or said anything as the kids approached. If there was bad blood between the Argents and the Hales before, that was nothing compared to what there could be after Talia Hale killed the Argent patriarch with the same cold detachment as a hunter would kill off a wolf. For a long minute after Talia tossed the sword all Chris did was stare at his father's body.

The werewolf responsible gave him his space and only politely acknowledged Melissa and Casey around him. Her attention was mostly split between Chris and Allison. The archer's broken arrow was still buried in Gerard's back, so trouble wasn't likely from that corner. But the Argents were as mercurial as any werewolf Stilinski had met yet, so he wasn't playing any odds. Neither was Talia.

Allison tucked herself up under her father's arm to try to draw him back. Chris squeezed her shoulder.

“He fell on his sword,” he reported quietly.

“With a _little_ help,” added Peter. The wolf had the grace to at least attempt to temper his usual smug attitude about that detail.

The three wolves sniffed around Gerard's body as though they had to be certain he was really dead and Chris finally looked away. It seemed like an accident that he looked up at Talia and Stilinski braced to break up a fight. But there wasn’t one. Chris stared at her for a moment, then nodded. Talia acknowledged him soberly. Chris turned back to hike out of the preserve. No one expected the Argents to see to the body, and it was safer if they didn’t. Chris paused near Talia to collect the broken pieces of the sword. His injured shoulder dragged as he stood back up, the added weight of the broken metal doing nothing good after the night’s abuses.

“Souvenir,” he muttered. He glanced up at Casey, just a shade closer to his occasional bemused expression. “And I’m not leaving evidence lying around, Sheriff.”

“No, you’re going home,” said Melissa. “The rest of us will deal with... evidence.”

Chris huffed and rolled his eyes, gave a vague nod. Talia seemed to hesitate, caution flashing briefly on her face before she made up her mind. She caught Chris’ shoulder and even in the dark, Stilinski was close enough to see the black lines crawl up under the woman’s sleeves. A bold move, Stilinski figured, pack or not. Stiles had once told him that pack _couldn’t_ hurt pack, that it went against instinct and required an almost complete mental break to cause any real damage, but there had to be some kind of exception to when _pack_ killed _family_. Justified or not, that had to hurt.

So it was all the more surprising when Chris mirrored Talia’s hold, set his hand to her shoulder and stepped in to offer the woman comfort in return. Chris wasn’t a hugger, and Talia was almost always perfectly composed, but they leaned on each other as proof that there was an exception to every rule. When he left, Chris stood a little taller again, less pain being carried in the damaged shoulder as he followed his daughter away from the scene. Talia was peacefully calm.

Scott kept his distance from Chris but he judged it safe enough to send Isaac with Allison to keep track of the two. They disappeared up over the edge of the channel and Casey frowned back at the mess he was left with. All the _evidence_. He was not feeling very triumphant just then, even if they had just dispatched a darach and a monster all in one - very messy - go. He had to secure the scene, _destroy_ physical evidence of the number of people present at the crime, call in the coroners, had to make a report, and then put himself on leave pending investigation _again_ , this time for shooting a monster. Technically a man, but whatever. This was going to go over great with Kyle McCall.

“Hell,” he muttered.

“I’ll take care of it,” Talia said. It caught his attention back to her and she shrugged. “You get them home. Peter, Scott and I will worry about... this.”

Scott seemed less than willing to help but he nodded. He had been a leaning post for the still-damp Cora but when he was volunteered for body-dumping duty, she subtly eased off. Talia sent Scott off to find a shovel back at the trucks and Cora went with him since that was an innocuous enough errand, all things considered.

“Stiles?” Melissa asked, looking at the pale and chattering teenager hunkered stubbornly in his father’s coat. He was far too distracted keeping tabs on Derek and the other two wolves and startled at the quiet question. “Where did you and Derek leave Talia’s car keys?”

Stiles shrugged, jerked his chin toward Derek. “I dunno. That dumbass took them,” he said. He paused and then raised his voice just slightly louder than conversational, something completely unnecessary since he was dealing with wolves. “And I swear to god, Derek, if you touch that with your _mouth_ , I will _kill_ you!”

Talia cracked a relieved grin as Melissa made a strangled yelp. Stilinski pressed a palm to his face and genuinely worried about his son. “I’m just... I went wrong _somewhere_...”

“I took notes.” Stiles shrugged distractedly. "If you ask nice I might make a list before _Stilinski_ version 2.1 hits beta-testing."

Melissa tried to glare at him, she really did, but it dissolved into a grin when she caught Casey smirking at her.

 

***


	32. Chapter 32

“I’d be warmer if I was _helping_ them...” Stiles’ insistent use of wrong-headed logic worked it’s way past Melissa’s last nerve and she stopped some twenty yards from their destination to make Stiles turn toward her.

“Stiles. Sweetie. Listen to me,” she said, forced patience the only thing maintaining her effort at a smile. Stiles narrowed his eyes at her.

“That is not your _sweetie_ face,” he pointed out. “And look! We’ve been walking, what, five minutes, and I’m _warmer_. Exercise is good...”

“Hypothermia is _bad_ ,” returned Mel. “You can get your exercise by getting to the truck and finding wherever Derek left the keys.”

“I wasn’t in the water long enough to get hypothermia-”

“Forty degrees outside!” interrupted Mel with a general wave to the breath visibly escaping from their faces.

“I wanna be helping, damnit!” Stiles needed to stomp his foot to complete the overall picture from that particular exclamation but he thankfully didn’t. Mel caught him by the front of the sheriff’s jacket over his shoulders and tugged him down enough to look her in the eye. Damn tall Stilinski genetics anyway.

"You know what, _don't_ do this because you need to get warm. _Self-preservation_ is an outdated and overused practice that’s only leading the world to ruin,” she said, completely serious enough that Stiles blinked at her. “Do it for me. For my _piece of mind_. So that I know that a least one of my boys is okay and so that I don't have to sit in that car by myself with nothing to do but second guess every decision I've made leading up to standing in 40 degree weather arguing about if it’s too cold outside while Scott _disposes of a body_ in the woods at two in the morning."

Stiles stared at her, wide-eyed as he seemed realize he was standing in front of an alpha at the end of her rope. “Okay! Think _Calm_... Look, I’ll... I’ll go get Derek’s clothes out of the truck and change, okay? Then I’ll go trade with Scott so he’s here-”

“No, Scott’s helping Talia,” said Melissa.

“Talia will let me-”

Melissa tugged on the front of the jacket again to shake a hint of Stiles’ usually intelligent brain back into working intelligently. “Scott’s with _Talia_! I’m not worried about _Scott_!”

The teen blinked at her, confused and then slightly annoyed. “Why’s everyone worried about _me_? There’s a whole pack to choose from! Just stop...”

“ _Because_ we’re worried about Scott, and we’re worried about your dad, and we’re worried about Derek. And in case you hadn’t noticed, it messes with all three of them when something happens to _you._ It messes with me, it messes with the packs now,” Mel told him. “Whether _you think_ you’re in anybody’s pack or not.”

“But I’m not,” said Stiles. “It’s not the same.”

“You _are_. You’re in mine _and_ Scott’s _and_ Derek’s. And you’re standing right here arguing with me, and I’m freaking letting you, because we’re apparently _both stupid_ ,” said Mel. She raised her arm and pointed to the SUV. “Get your ass in the damn car or I’ll go get a wolf to make you do it, I swear I will.”

Stiles considered his options. “Can I pick the wolf?”

Melissa raised a brow at the obvious challenge. “ _Peter_.”

“Ohmygod I’m going, jeeze,” said Stiles quickly. Melissa caught his arm as he walked, as much of a hug as she figured the kid would tolerate from her. Stiles surprised her though, slipped his arm free to tuck around her shoulders instead. Mel smiled gratefully to herself and wrapped Stiles in the same sideways squeeze she would have given Scott. Stiles was a lot more damp than Scott at the moment, and not much cleaner, but it didn’t much matter.

 

***

 

The project was done without a lot of talking. The three wolves were much faster diggers than Scott and his shovel. Deaton took a few extra precautions with it and then they buried the body near enough to the Nemeton that any residual powers would be siphoned off by the tree before long rather than form some kind of witches’ ring around it to call attention to it. When they got back to the cars, it was late, everyone was dirty and tired, and talking still wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list.

Ethan and Aiden disappeared into the woods while Talia, Cora, Deaton, Scott and Derek trailed back to the cars. Deaton had his own car and said his quiet goodbyes before they got back to the impromptu parking lot. The sheriff had done as he was told and escorted Chris and Allison safely home. That left Melissa and Stiles waiting impatiently in front of the SUV’s heaters, which told Derek that someone had found the keys with his clothes.

Stiles had ditched the wet shirts and was huddled in the sheriff’s jacket in front of the cranked up heaters while Melissa went to check on the crew finally returning with Talia. On her exit, Derek jumped up in to the driver’s seat, sniffed at the still-damp Stiles, then hopped between the seats to crawl into the back. A minute later he was half dressed and shoved his dry shirt at Stiles before the idiot teenager froze himself into the hospital. He added in the blanket that had been left in the backseat and Stiles huffed at him about mother hens. Stiles apparently figured he had a better idea and crawled from the front passenger seat to the middle bench to take up the space next to the werewolf space-heater _and_ the blanket and the dry shirt all at once.

Scott showed up in the door then, climbed around the seat to sit behind them. He angled behind an annoyed Stiles, forced to unravel from his blanket cocoon around Derek in order to see Scott.

“We figured you were going to take Allison’s car back since Dad took Mel’s car,” said Stiles, confused. Scott nodded.

“Yeah, I am. Me and Cora are leaving in a minute.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow at him, waved a hand briefly out of the blanket. “This is not the Hale you are looking for.”

Scott gave him a blank look. Stiles rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath about Scott’s insistent lack of culture.

“Nevermind,” said Stiles. Derek smirked as he looked from Stiles, the question back on his face as he stared over his shoulder at Scott. The younger werewolf scratched at the back of his head, stuck for a moment. There was an uncharacteristic frown on his face. Derek raised an eyebrow at him that time.

“What, Scott?” he asked.

“I just...” Scott hesitated again and then calmed down a little, grimaced and forged ahead. “I wanted to say I was sorry. For the...” Scott waved vaguely off toward the woods. “For that.”

The apology wasn’t entirely random after the night they’d had, but it _was_ completely unexpected. For a moment, Derek just stared at the kid. He finally nodded. “Alright,” he said mildly. “Thanks.”

Stiles stared between them, eyes slightly wide. He looked like he wanted to hug somebody but couldn’t tell if he wanted to risk going after Derek or clearing the back of the seat to tackle Scott. Instead he stayed in his blanket-burrito because Derek narrowed his eyes at him. The front doors opened again, signalling it was time to leave unless Scott wanted to give Talia and Melissa a chance to drive off with him still in the SUV. Scott and Derek nodded to each other and Stiles smacked his hand and crushed his fingers as Scott snuck out.

“There’s hope for the kid yet,” said Stiles, proud of his buddy. Derek scoffed and rolled his eyes but still nodded.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said quietly. Stiles must have heard something in it and looked over at him, head tilted curiously. Derek shrugged and didn’t say anything.

 

***


	33. Chapter 33

The next day at the office, Stilinski was a zombie. A jumpy one. There was a dead body somewhere in the preserve and he was just waiting for some coyote or mountain lion to dig it up for a hiker to find. His imagination was in league with his conscience and together they had him almost convinced that the station already knew. And then he remembered it was mid-January, and the only hikers who went that far into the preserve in the middle of winter were either in there hiding from the law already or they were supernaturally-bent enough not to blink at a monster-body in the woods. Or they were part of the packs who had been involved in putting it there.

Stilinski looked over at the picture of his kid on the cabinet. Stiles " _no, I have fake-pneumonia, you can't make me go to school_ " Stilinski. The pack-less kid who had unknowingly started the sheriff off on a quest to turn his life upside down if that's what it took to keep up with him. Now the sheriff was worried about a _dead body_ that had to stay hidden and Stiles was probably not-actually-sleeping off his slide through the river the night before at the expense of _school_. Not to mention the whole _Stiles-_ caused _-a-landslide_ thing in the first place. That was about as upside down as things could get.

Ignoring the part where Stiles was wiped out on druid-voodoo-vibes and no longer felt the need to run off to take a Spanish test after kicking monster ass, it had been a busy and ultimately successful month for everyone. Sure, Stiles was battered but slowly getting his feet under himself again. _Everyone_ in Stilinski’s pack was healing in some form or another. Mel's arm and ribs still gave her trouble, and Stilinski knew from experience that Chris' shoulder had only just begun to irritate the hunter. Casey rubbed at his shoulder where the darach had stabbed him back before Thanksgiving. He was fine now, everything back in working order based on the way he felt after the early morning adventure.

And Talia... She had served six years penance to her pack and avenged them only that morning. The woman seemed lighter, a burden gone, but who knew how long that would last. And there was that whole thing with Chris apparently, which didn't seem like such a great idea now to Stilinski, but he was keeping his nose out of it. He would give Chris the benefit of the doubt, but he knew well enough the man had a temper. If Stilinski was still occasionally ruffled by Stiles’ story of a few hunters cornering him in a morgue, he had trouble believing Chris was cool with his father’s death.

“You look like death warmed over. Have fun last night?” Kyle McCall’s voice interrupted Stilinski’s zombified zone-out and he jumped. He blinked up at the fed and had to work to remember who he was for a minute.

“Uh...”

Kyle gave an exasperated sigh and tossed some papers on his desk. “If it involves my ex, I don’t want to know so you can just keep it to yourself.”

“No problem,” agreed Stilinski. He looked at the paperwork. “What’s-”

“Missing persons report. On an Argent. One Gerard Argent,” said Kyle. “He disappeared from a nursing home 48 hours ago, hasn’t been seen since.”

“Huh.” Stilinski read over the report as he started sorting blind through a stack of manilla files on the corner of his desk. He paused long enough to verify the one he found before handing it over to Kyle. “You’re going to want _this_ before you go thinking too much about this.”

Kyle accepted it and looked it over. He shook his head, clicked his tongue. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Got descriptions and everything out of him,” said Stilinski. “So we’ve got more on Chris’ mugging than we’ve got on Gerard’s disappearance.”

Holy Shit. Sheriff Casey Stilinski had just lied like a pro. To a federal agent. He was going to hell. He took a deep breath and reached for his coffee, shaking his head. Kyle still read the paperwork and didn’t notice.

“So 48 hours ago, Chris Argent -”

“And Talia Hale,” interrupted the Sheriff, waving a finger at the paper in Kyle’s hand.

“So Chris Argent and Talia Hale were jumped at the Hale house. The same night Gerard Argent goes missing from his room at the nursing home. Why were they at the house at night?”

Sheriff shrugged. “Talia applied to reverse the will, since she’s not actually dead. She got the land back and Chris was out there helping her sort out what to do with it, I guess.”

The report lost some interest and Kyle arched an eyebrow at Stilinski. “There something going on with those two?”

“Probably? I met Victoria a few times. Tall alpha-type females seem to be his thing.” Stilinski shrugged. Kyle seemed confused but left that one alone. He dropped the file back on the sheriff’s desk and got back to business.

“So this thing,” he said, pointing between the two reports. “You think this is related to Hutchinsons’ case?”

Stilinski perked up a little. He pulled out the report on Chris’ “mugging” and was suddenly quite glad he’d thought to have it written up after Melissa decided to _kill Chris_ at the hospital. He read off Chris’ descriptions of the men in the fight, out loud, just for emphasis. Then he looked up at Kyle.

“Well, you’ve got a potential witness getting jumped and left for dead. At a victim’s former residence. And the same night, the man’s decrepit, cancer-ridden father disappears from an unsecured nursing home?” he asked. “Yeah, I think it’s a safe bet they’re related. Good luck proving it, but that’s basically the entire case, isn’t it?”

“I’ll ask the Hales about it then. And I’ll be taking those files from you once I get the requests in,” said Kyle. Sheriff Stilinski nodded, smirked lightly. If Kyle kept looking to tie things to his RICO case against the Nevada hunters, the monster in the forest would never be found. The man’s predictable nature was a surprise blessing suddenly.

 

***

 

A nice long sleep that morning had done wonders for Melissa’s outlook on the world. They still had their problems, but she had personally taken part in the destruction of one of them. While _pack_ was a good thing, defending it came with some unforeseen responsibilities she never would have signed on for if she had been warned. But her relationship with death and dying had gone sideways on her years earlier, after just a month as a nurse. It happened. It was part of the process. The trick was not to rush it along whenever possible. Gerard was an abomination that had tried to subvert that process, tried to take down her pack with it. He picked that fight and they were better ready for it this time.

And Melissa McCall was heading to work like they hadn’t just killed a monster that morning.

She had assigned herself a stop to make on her way in, part of the nursing-side-meets-the-alpha-side she was figuring out how to align with lately. So Melissa stood in the hallway outside the Argents' condo, her hand raised to knock. The sound of the door lock surprised her before she had gotten quite to announcing her presence in the hall and she stilled, her head tilted curiously. She knew there was no way Chris had been turned in the past twenty-four hours, but he was apparently as good at the door-thing as the wolves. Melissa stood with her arms crossed, in her scrubs, with her purse over her shoulder as she waited for the door to be opened. A moment later, Chris looked out at her, startled.

“Melissa?” he blurted. The non-wolf alpha arched an eyebrow at him, a dangerous smirk on her face as she saw him try to hide something behind the wall.

“Hmm? What’s this?” she asked, taunting for no reason other than the man’s guilty expression. He opened his mouth for some sarcastic and biting response, Mel was sure, but the elevator dinged, announcing company. Melissa took advantage of the distraction and caught at the thing he had tried to keep hidden behind the door frame. Her brow inched higher in surprise as she found herself suddenly holding a very expensive bottle of wine.

“Really now?” she asked. Chris rolled his eyes at her but that was all they had time for. The elevator doors opened then and they both turned to look. Talia stepped out of the elevator, her head down as though to check on the item she still carried, make sure it hadn’t gone anywhere on the ride down. Bourbon. Melissa looked back at Chris and smirked, tucked the wine in her purse. Talia obviously had the better idea and they would just pretend the wine had never happened. Chris glared.

Talia looked up and noticed them then as Melissa let out an appreciative wolf-whistle for her friend’s just-this-side-of-dressy choice of elevator-attire.

“I guess I’ll just get myself on to work then,” said Melissa. “It looks like you’re already taken care of.”

“Looks like,” echoed Chris, distracted nonetheless. Talia shook her head at them as she approached. The hardly-hidden bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whisky was held up and presented to Chris then.

“Truce?” she offered. Chris nodded, grinned a little uncertainly.

“I was just... going to ask you the same thing, actually,” he said.

Melissa nodded, smug as she hugged her purse and the stolen wine. “I can confirm that,” she said. “So, I’ll leave you to your truce-ing.”

Chris frowned at her. “Stop hanging out with Stiles.”

“I told you,” chimed in Talia.

The only response was a dangerous smile and a kiss on the cheek for each of them before Melissa turned toward the elevators. She faced them again about half way down the hall, pointing a finger at Chris. “You. Let her check your shoulder. Or I’ll be back at 3am when my shift is up.”

“Jeezus...” muttered Chris.

“Nope, still just your alpha,” replied Mel. She was still smiling when she stepped into the elevator, waved at the pair as the doors closed. This was a really good way to start her work day.

 

***


	34. Chapter 34

It took a few days for things to get back to normal. Well, kind of normal. As normal as it ever got, anyway. The new exceptions to the school/detention/hang with Scott/annoy his dad were the times Stiles sat at Derek's mostly-empty and hard-to-injure loft and tried to _Druid_ -stuff. He moved pencils about two centimeters. He got a piece of homework to crumple itself into a ball but that completely didn't count because it was an accident. There were no more earthquakes, thankfully. But Stiles hadn't panicked over anything in a day or so, either. It happened once, it could do it again, and there was only so much Stiles could do about it. He was still in over his head.

So, it wasn't until he had proven that he could walk a straight line, touch his nose with his eyes closed and passed every drunk-Druid-possession test his dad could throw at him, that Stiles got the jeep back. It wasn't perfect. There were still dents and scratches, all marked up with newfound character. But the frame was sound, the engine roared up and kicked over like always. The radio worked, brand new kit, with a CD player and AUX hookup that did abso-freakin-lutely no good in the regular noise of the truck, but whatever. He had options to the air-drums. _Normal_ and _Improved_. The jeep was still in fighting shape, just like the rest of him.

There was still a small, annoyed and distrustful voice in the back of his mind that complained about his first solo trip in the jeep being a trip to Alan Deaton. Jeeps were for school and food and going places; they were not given back for the purpose of begging favors from druids, even nice ones. Except when they were, because Stiles knew he needed one.

He parked the jeep right in front of the lobby, not about to let the precious Four Wheels of Freedom out of his sight longer than he had to for awhile. Then Stiles sat behind the wheel and stared at the door. Talked himself into getting out of the jeep. Talked himself into going into the vet’s office. Talked himself out of it. Then talked himself back into it and sat down in a lobby chair to better acquaint himself with the idea. He wasn’t actually waiting for anything other than his own courage to kick back into gear.

A good kick start on that was probably Stiles sitting in the lobby being a chicken-shit and Deaton walking his patient and their person out to the front counter. It negated all of Stiles’ reasonable excuses to run away and hide again. To never ask another druid to teach him anything, ever, ever, ever again. And now that window was gone and he was stuck. Stiles’ shoulders nearly touched his ears as he slouched in the lobby chair and waited for the vet to finish his actual paid-to-do-things job. He watched the pet and their person leave and stared at the door for awhile. Stiles stopped when the “Open” sign started bouncing a little, like it wanted to flip over to “Closed” and reminded Stiles perfectly of why he was there at all.

Deaton noticed and raised an eyebrow at him. He seemed perfectly calm, cool about it, his hands in his coat pockets like he just had to wait for the punchline. “Mr. Stilinski?”

“Hi.” Stiles scrunched his nose and stayed slouched in his chair. “You got a minute? Or maybe, like ten or something?”

Deaton nodded and held the gate open for him. “My office?” he asked. He motioned toward the glass door. “Or should I just flip the sign for now?”

Caught out for the accidental magic, Stiles shoved himself out of the chair, resolved to at least stop acting like he was eight. He kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie and shrugged. He had spent so much time stressing about just showing up that he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

“I don’t know if this is an office-thing or if we should just stay out here because it’s a _shorter-walk-back-to-the-car_ kind of thing. And I just... _don’t know_ what to do.” Stiles floundered and he reached up to scrub at the side of his head, frustrated. “I’m kind of... I sort of still need help and I’m stuck and if I keep trying to fix it on my own, I could _hurt_ people. So could you teach me?”

Deaton patiently waited him out and considered the teenager’s ramble. The car keys rattling nervously in Stiles’ hand took a sudden jump toward the glass doors, the keychain tugged right out of his closed fist. It was a wonderful illustration of the various weird things that happened when Stiles got too edgy the past few days and the exact reason he needed to get on top of it.

The former emissary of the Hale pack, now a vet and a side-line druid with a lot of friends, nodded at Stiles in recognition of his predicament. His usual bemused and sneaky smile crossed his face. He waved a hand toward the back rooms of the veterinary clinic. “Definitely an office-thing.”

Stiles realized he was actually relieved and managed a small grin.

 

***

 

Deaton sent Stiles home that day with _homework_. It was either homework, or a new pet with a lifespan of either ten days or nine-months, they couldn’t be sure. It was really up to Stiles to decide, which probably still made it fall under the “homework” category. He had to carefully consider his options and what they could mean, the impact they could have. For his homework, Deaton had given Stiles a mason jar, air holes poked in the top, with a little moth inside. A little white moth with red stripes on the tips of the wings.

He wasn’t sure what to do with it, knowing exactly what it was. Or rather, who. Stiles didn’t think it was really his call to make by himself. So he consulted Derek as the only other living person who had ever harbored a darach-soul. Stiles wanted to swap out the lid and suffocate the little moth _to death_. Predictably, Derek suggested the Nemeton instead. Stiles was thankfully getting better at staring down things that scared him. So he drove them to the tree for an awkward picnic lunch of whatever Derek could find to grab from the gas station stop they made on the way out there.

An hour later, Derek sat on the edge of the massive tree stump. Stiles leaned against his back and stared at the white moth that had landed on his knee when he let it out of the jar. The little red stripes on the wings kept his attention and he refused to lose track of it. He could feel the energy of the place around the tree now, more than before, but sitting where he was, even with Jennifer Blake’s little white moth, Stiles felt no threat from it. He didn’t know exactly what to do with it, but he wasn’t worried about it yet.

Noise from beyond the open clearing around the Nemeton made Stiles drop the glass jar back over the moth and he looked up to see Peter Hale sneak out from between the trees.

“You rang?” Peter asked Derek.

“Yeah,” said Derek. He leaned forward enough to give Stiles a hint and the teenager and his moth clammered off the tree after him. Stiles carefully set the jar to the surface of the tree stump, making sure the moth stayed inside. It flicked around and bumped the edges of the glass frantically. Derek waved Peter’s attention to the moth as Stiles stepped back.

“The last time you tried to take care of a darach on your own, you made a mess,” Derek said to his uncle. “And _my_ pack had to clean it up for you. I figured you might want a chance to get it right this time.”

Peter raised an eyebrow as he looked between Derek and Stiles. “I’m Melissa’s enforcer,” he said. “Not yours.”

“And you probably don’t want to owe a druid any more favors than you already do,” said Derek. He glanced briefly at Stiles, enough to direct Peter’s attention, and Stiles offered up a sarcastic, annoyed grin. If his right hand made a fist and tucked into the other elbow while he brought up his left hand, the sign language didn’t necessarily mean Peter had to assume it was intentional.

“Oh.” Peter’s expression said he caught on. He brightened and nodded. “When you put it that way.”

“Got a fly swatter?” asked Stiles. Peter rolled his eyes.

“Gloves,” he said. The fashion conscious diva that he was, Peter pulled a pair of leather gloves from his coat pocket. “Should do the trick.”

“Right. Okay then,” said Stiles. He looked from the jar to Peter and shrugged. “I guess let the Hunger Games begin. Either the moth gets her fuzzy wings into the Nemeton or you squish her like a little bug. Again.”

“Sounds fair,” added Derek. They stepped away from the tree stump to clear the path. By the time Peter picked up the jar, though, the moth’s wings had folded together and the bug lay flat against the tree. Jennifer had vacated the premises, one last sacrifice to the tree rather than die as a moth.

“Well. That was a gigantic waste of my time. Thank you,” Peter looked over at them, a little annoyed. Stiles smirked, pointed at the moth.

“Told you it would work,” he said. Derek shrugged.

“Still not paying up,” Derek replied. Peter pulled a spectacular bitch-face at his nephew.

“You called me all the way out here just to intimidate a moth?” he asked. Stiles nodded, but he and Derek both shrugged their shoulders.

“That, and we hired some kids to trash your car while it was out here,” Stiles said with a smirk. Peter blinked at him. He was obviously listening for the lie but didn’t find it.

“Shit.” With that ungentlemanly oath, Peter ran back to where he had parked.

“Huh,” said Stiles, thoughtful and surprised. “I guess he didn’t steal it after all.”

Derek raised an eyebrow at Stiles. He had been present the whole time, knew well enough that no hoodlums had been hired on the way into the preserve, and Stiles hadn’t made any phone calls since their decision to call in Peter. Derek obviously knew what a lie sounded like. The teenager smiled at him.

“I’m getting better at it,” he said.

“Lie,” Derek reported calmly.

 

***


	35. Chapter 35

"No! Don't turn around like that. You're too open _here_." Derek held a hand to Stiles' chest and walked him through the move he had made to be sure Stiles saw the problem. Stiles could hold his own but half of his fighting was flailing with strength behind it. He didn't know what he was doing and faked it. It had been Stiles' idea to fix that now that he was feeling better. Derek was glad to oblige; the kid had the energy to direct it better and learned quick. He just had to practice control.

"Don't forget to pay attention to what _you're_ doing when you're watching what _I'm_ doing," said Derek. Stiles gave him that knowing smirk and rolled his shoulders.

"You don't wanna know what _you're_ doing. I'm distracted. Not my fault," he said. Derek grinned back at him and his hand slid from the center of Stiles' ribs to tweak his nipple. Stiles crumpled over his side to dodge the dirty trick and then stabbed his fingers at the ticklish spot on Derek's side in retaliation. Derek swatted the effort away without hardly trying.

"Focus," he reminded him, smug.

"Alright, alright," said Stiles. He backed up a step and shook it off, shot Derek a dirty glare for the ache at his chest, and readied to try the fight again. Derek paced and then waved him on. A very determined Stiles stepped forward to draw him into a fight, keeping his blows mostly where Derek could block them and his chest protected like Derek wanted him to work on. It had only taken one light hit across the back for Stiles to get the hint about his chest, the still-healing burn there driving home the point that _exposed and open is bad_. Stiles just didn’t seem to remember he was dealing with a werewolf that there was no way he could injure by sparring. Derek cracked a grin, amused by the punches Stiles pulled.

"You aren't going to _hurt_ me," he reminded him as Stiles backed him up a step. "Don't learn to pull your punches. Do it _right_."

Stiles shrugged and the next chance he had, he slammed a fist into Derek's gut and followed it up with his shoulder to drive him back off the mats. Derek's back hit the wall but it didn't faze him.

"Better," he said. At least it had winded him. There was hope yet. Stiles didn't give him a chance to step off the wall, moving in again. Derek tried to catch his arms in a pin to drive Stiles back but the wiry teen snaked under the effort and in against Derek's chest where he couldn't be shoved back. It was a wrestling move but Derek realized quickly Stiles wasn't wrestling. He was thoroughly kissed and pinned to the wall by then, Stiles’ hands around his wrists at their sides to keep him from resuming the fight. There was no helping the smile that interrupted their kiss.

"I said _focus_..." He spoke against Stiles' cheek when they came to a breather. Stiles nodded and tracked the line of Derek's jaw with nipping kisses.

"I am _very_ focused right now," he replied. Derek swore under his breath as Stiles leaned his body against him, a knee sneaking in to mess with Derek's balance.

"Just promise you aren't going to try _this_ with anything actually out to _kill you_ ," he managed. Stiles pulled back to grin at him and Derek reached up to catch his face in his hands, claiming another _very_ focused kiss.

They made it almost five minutes still telling each other they were just on a break, they would get back to what they were doing in a minute.

"Screw it," muttered Derek. He caught Stiles' hand and tugged him to the bedroom. He still didn't have a door but he really didn't care. Based on how quickly Stiles stripped out of his shirt and started work on Derek's, he didn't care either.

It had finally settled into Derek's head that he had something safe that wasn't pack. Stiles wanted him. And the guy didn't have to be saved all the time, he didn't hang on to Derek just because it was going to pay off in the end. He did it because he was Stiles, because he knew what he wanted, because he was annoying, and because he got it in his head somehow that Derek was worth his time. If he hung on for _survival_ , it was an entirely different sort. That was new territory to Derek.

He was too used to false starts and problems; he _expected_ to be picked-up and drop-kicked. He hated being alone but it was all he had for years and all he knew to look for. Except for Stiles was in his space and pulling on him and pouncing on him to get _Derek_ in _his_ space. And after almost a month of staying back, holding him away for Derek's sake as much as Stiles', there was nothing Derek wanted more in that moment than Stiles.

It felt pretty damn mutual when Stiles caught his leg around Derek’s hip. It matched his hold around Derek’s shoulders and flattened their bodies together as much as possible. When Derek tried to pull back to keep from flattening Stiles right into the mattress, he got growled at under an open-mouthed kiss and Derek had to remind himself to breathe and not _lose it_. Stiles’ fingers slid over his skin and grabbed whatever he could catch hold of without losing skin to skin contact everywhere else and his hips did the same damn thing through the layers of clothes they hadn’t ditched yet. After a month of hiding behind boundaries, Derek was _wrecked_ in _minutes_ when he let them down.

“We gotta st-” The request for a break broke off as Stiles’ tongue tangled around his to shut him up. But Stiles’ hand stopped grabbing, softening out to strokes instead. Derek growled at that because _holy hell, Stiles_. He felt Stiles grin against his neck at the low rumble and he growled again just to keep him happy. Stiles arched into him to get Derek’s mouth back in target range and Derek caught his hip to hold him there, almost gone when he felt like they hadn’t even started. Stiles settled against the pillow and smirked up at Derek.

“I’m gonna break those damn boundary lines, man. I swear to god. It’s gonna happen,” he said. His voice was low and content; the sound of Stiles actually being quiet. Derek wasn’t sure he could even talk and just nodded. Stiles shoved at his chest and pushed Derek onto his side, rolled him over on to his back like a puppy. Derek looked over at the wooden chair that served as his nightstand but Stiles took his reaching arm as an invitation and Derek’s shoulder became a pillow. Stiles stretched out against Derek’s side and lay half over him, arm tucked over his ribs and a thigh trapping his. He stifled a yawn against Derek’s chest.

“Near-future. Plan on it. Just not right now,” Stiles mumbled.

Derek stared up at the ceiling and let out a bark of laughter as he realized what had just happened. He had shut them down so many times that Stiles expected it now. Stiles took a hint Derek hadn’t meant to give for once and was near asleep in record-breaking time.

“Whut?” Stiles asked, the exhaustion in his voice making Derek smile. All afternoon training and then a half hour playing dirty apparently took a toll. He looked over Stiles’ messy hair to the small box on the chair. Stiles hadn’t noticed the carefully placed hint in his focus on Derek. Apparently he would have to introduce the two more formally later. After a _nap_. One that promised to be more than slightly _uncomfortable_. It only served Derek right after a month of not listening and he bit his lip to quiet his own laughter. His inside-joke almost tugged Stiles back to awareness until Derek curled an arm along his shoulder and held on to the one across his chest. He pressed his lips to Stiles’ forehead and felt the sleepy grin against his collarbone.

“I’ll tell you later,” he promised.

 

***


	36. Chapter 36

For the millionth time in two months, Scott was rethinking the wisdom of having told his mother anything. She would have been so much safer if he had just let her stay mad at him, let her lock herself in her room and not talk to him, ever, ever again. At least then he wouldn’t be getting text messages that scared the living hell out of him. Who sent a message that said _Come home Now. I need Help._ anyway? What was he supposed to think? Who knew what he was going to walk into. It was a _text message!_ And what happened to his mom’s determination that they needed _codewords_ for text messages?

Scott jumped onto the porch and slammed through the door, grateful as an afterthought that it was unlocked, because his mom would have killed him if he had broken it. He heard the sound of dishes clinking and clattering in the kitchen and headed for it. He slid to a stop in the middle of the floor when he saw a spotless clean kitchen, and a spotless and dressed up Mom standing in the middle of it loading the dishwasher. The only other scent from his mom that wasn’t just _her_ was the noticeable, safe marks of Stilinski. And Talia. And Peter. And Chris Argent. No fear, no intimidation, no danger. She lifted an eyebrow at his grand entrance and Scott thought to put away the claws.

“What the- Mom! What-” Scott gaped at her. She put away the last dish and closed the door, wiped her hands on a rag on the counter. “But the text...”

“Said _come home now, I need help._ Which can still occasionally mean _help_ with the dishes you didn’t do,” replied Melissa. Scott blinked at her.

“It was Isaac’s turn.”

That made his mom pause for a moment before she shrugged. She promised to get on him when he came home that night and Scott just stared.

“Mom! You don’t abuse the Emergency Text Alert system! Does _the Boy Who Cried Wolf_ mean anything to you, at all?” blurted Scott. If he had taken a moment to think about it, he probably wouldn’t have grabbed that example, but he had, so he rolled with it. Mel smirked at him.

“First, I’m your mother. I don’t care how many times I cry wolf, when I do, you run your ass home,” she said, smug. “And if that’s not enough, I’m an alpha, and I’ve got back-up, and I will hunt you down if you don’t. So just plan on it being a thing now.”

“Ohmygod!”

“Oh, you’re gonna _love_ why I called you home,” she said. The woman just wouldn’t quit. Scott’s panic turned to an annoyed disbelief. How could his mom not see how _irresponsible_ her trick was? She wasn’t even paying attention, he could have had half the pack at their doorstep by now...

“You’re having dinner with your father tonight.” Melissa’s announcement stopped Scott’s worried mind from its loop of reasons why His Mother the Alpha Is Impossible. He had to struggle to keep up for a second. “The manicotti is in the oven and the salad is in the fridge. And he’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”

“I’m what?” he asked. There was no way he had heard that right. “Wait. Is that why you’re dressed up? I thought this was date night. You go with Koz, and me and Cora-”

“It is date night, and I am going with Koz, but Cora’s not allowed within five miles of this house tonight,” said Melissa. Scott started to argue but Melissa tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. “Do I have your attention yet? Like, really have it, or are you just trying to figure out what to fight this with?”

The odd question made Scott think a minute and he frowned at her, brow furrowed. He settled down and finally shrugged out of his backpack to toss it on the floor since it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. “Okay. Fine. What am I supposed to do? You know I don’t like the guy. I don’t care who he is. You know that, Mom...”

“Yep, and I know it because I’m the one that taught you to do it,” she said soberly. There was no small amount of self-censure in the way she said it, too, and Scott stared at her, confused.

“You didn’t _teach me_ that. I did. He left us. When I was a kid, even. And he forgot about me, and he missed birthday phone calls and sometimes he missed Christmas, and then I stopped giving a damn...”

Melissa nodded, her Mom-stance relaxed into crossed arms and a lean against the counter. “And that was all when you were a kid, Scotty. Which you aren’t anymore. Right?”

Scott frowned and nodded. He smirked. “I’m bigger than you anyway.”

“Ah, but not wiser,” smiled his mother, waving a finger at him. “And me, in my infinite wisdom as Mom and as somebody who’s still getting a handle on this alpha thing too... I think you need to sit down and think real seriously about your stance of non-communication with your dad. You want to maybe know why?”

Scott only reluctantly nodded, and then only because it seemed to be the answer his mom wanted to get.

“Because this alpha thing you got yourself into? It’s _work_ ,” she said sincerely. “It’s hard choices. It’s a lot of stuff you just don’t want to ever have to think about doing. But _you_ have to be the one to to make the calls, make the decisions that impact your friends. Maybe even their lives, but I’m really, really hoping we only get nice, non-violent monsters from here on out.”

The effort at humor hit its mark and Scott gave a quiet laugh even as he thought over what she was saying. “Yeah, I kinda am five-hundred-percent _positive_ that’s not going to happen.”

His mom nodded her agreement, shrugged her shoulders. “But I think you should figure out if you’re making them from your gut, or if you’re following someone else’s lead,” she said. “This thing with your dad is a good place to start. You can either follow my lead, be absolutely certain that _I’m_ absolutely certain that he’s the worst thing for either of us. Or you can get to know him for yourself, make up your own mind, without my opinion mattering one way or the other. I just want you to trust your own judgement; you need to know what’s best for the pack you’re trying to protect, more than just yourself. _You_ need to decide who you can _trust_.”

It made sense. Scott was surprised to realize that he not only understood, but he could almost, maybe just a little bit, agree with her. He still thought it over for almost a full minute, wanting to argue and grab his bag and go back to Deaton’s rather than deal with his dad. But that was exactly her point. Scott realized that he needed to make his own decision on that part of his life, even if he was more or less confident that he already knew the outcome. Scott let out a sigh and bobbed his head a little.

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

“So you’ll do dinner with your dad?” Melissa asked. She didn’t sound terribly happy about it, or really even hopeful, but he thought maybe he heard pride. Then she had to add in, “Without burning down my house or destroying my kitchen,” and he grinned at her.

“Yeah, I won’t let anything happen to the house,” he promised. His dad, he was making no promises about. But he would at least try.

“Good,” said Melissa. She smiled at him, and Scott did recognize pride that time, very definitely. Then Melissa crinkled her nose just a little. “You might want to go take a quick shower. You smell like sweaty _cat_.”

“I ran home! From _work_!” said Scott.

Melissa nodded and waved him toward the stairs. “Still, soap wouldn’t be a bad idea. I’m just saying...”

Scott glared at the ceiling as he turned toward the stairs.

 

***

 

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Derek’s disbelief was obvious before he had bothered to say anything about it and Talia glanced over at him for the immaturity. He was too busy glaring daggers into the elevator walls to notice. Cora was smug, only in that she enjoyed anything that annoyed her brother, and that only fed Derek’s irritated jaw-clench and stiffened shoulders. Talia took a deep breath, let it out as a sigh and punched the elevator stop button. She turned to corner both of her children away from the door and her hand hovered near the button in case someone on another floor tried to interrupt. Her son stood a little taller, no less awkward as he shoved his hands in his pockets just like he did as a teenager. Cora crossed her arms and glared at Derek briefly, like it was somehow all his fault.

“This needs to stop,” said Talia quietly. Her children gave her intentionally oblivious looks, which only made the woman narrow her eyes. “That. The both of you need to _grow up_. The Argents have joined our packs - No, not _yours_ , because you have a little pack of Omegas that you want to wallow in, and that’s your business, Derek.” The cutting observation knocked the attitude right out of Derek’s expression and the arrogance faded from his glare. The argument he had almost tried for all but disappeared. Talia turned to her daughter’s smug grin and delivered a look that took care of the attitude. “ _Ours_ , Cora. Allison, as you know, is in _your_ pack. With Scott. Who is not your _territory_ , he is your alpha, and you do not need to protect him from his own pack. Certainly not from Allison, hunter or not. Growling and catfights is fine with your brother, but for godsakes, show some self-respect with your pack.”

Cora shrugged into her jacket a little, suddenly uncertain of the wisdom of provoking her mother further. Talia nodded her approval of the change she saw and her tone gentled just enough to acknowledge it.

“You see _hunters_. But they have fought with us and for us and helped us, whether you approve of it or not. All of us. They have lost their own family to this war of Gerard’s. The two of _them_ have tried for a month to adjust to a complete change in their worldview, to look at the both of you and me as _humans_ and not the monsters they were taught we were. And yet you refuse to do the same in return? I understand the damage done, perhaps more than you, and I don’t forgive it, but it wasn’t done by them. You haven’t put an inch of effort into moving beyond that. You _choose_ to be _blind_ and I will not stand by that.”

Talia paused, pressed the elevator stop button again as it was paged. She looked to her children, giving them a final opportunity to tell her why they disagreed, why she was mean and cruel and unfair for expecting them to sit through such torturous wastes of time as a dinner with Chris and Allison Argent. Neither of them said anything. They stared, surprised, and for the first time in the month since their reunion there was something like their old respect shadowed on their faces. She released the elevator hold and sent the car to the Argents’ floor.

“For years, we were a counterpoint to the hunting families of the area,” she told them quietly. A history lesson Derek never would have gotten from Chris in any of their interactions, one the children were too young to have understood before the fire and Talia hadn’t thought relevant until now. “They behaved as long as we behaved; if either group stepped out of line, the other was there to put them back in order. Yes, Gerard broke that. Yes, he created a curse. Fine. But Chris and Allison are _pack_ now. And that should mean something to you.”

The elevator doors opened and Talia looked behind her to see they were where she expected to be. She held a hand to the doors as she stepped aside to clear the path. “The two of you can grow up and break bread with what’s left of the Argents. Keep this curse from destroying all of us.”

Cora was hardly subtle about using her brother as a shield as they stepped out into the hall. Derek stared openly at his mother, not afraid, but cautious and surprised. Talia caught her son’s elbow to make him walk with her as Cora strode ahead to put space between them.

“Your thoughts, Alpha Hale?” Talia said to Derek, quiet. He frowned at her, still trying to keep up with the so-far one-sided conversation. His brows folded together, confusion and annoyance and sadness all alternating in his expression.

“We’re not omegas,” he said finally. Talia arched an eyebrow at him.

“That better not have been the _only_ thing you heard me say,” she replied mildly.

“Fine, hunters, humans, blah-blah-blah,” muttered Derek. The arm that wasn’t escorting his mother untucked a hand from a pocket to pantomime a puppet yammering. “Be nice to the Argents. Got it.”

“Mmhmm,” said Talia. She still shook her head, a faint grin tugging at her lips. She stopped him and turned him to face her, checking his jacket and the collar of his button-down shirt. It wasn’t a suit-and-tie event, just a dinner, but it was still a goodwill dinner and she had browbeat her children into dressing nicely. She looked Derek in the eye and tugged gently at the front of the leather jacket. “No, you’re not omegas. You’re an alpha. You have their respect and their strength. But _an alpha’s pack_ should consist of more than just the alpha and a _Stiles_. You haven’t gotten it down yet, but you _will_. I know you will.”

Derek’s attention was drawn down the hall to where Cora leaned against the wall a few feet behind the Argents’ front door. Talia noticed and saw her daughter trying to ignore them, probably doing a fairly good job of it too, as she stared at the floor. Cora seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. Derek looked back to Talia then and his expression had changed. It surprised her in a way she was completely unprepared for, reminding her too much of the first time her son had looked at her with his blue eyed gaze.

“When you came back... Peter said you didn’t want the pack. He wanted you to take back the territory and you said you didn’t miss it,” said Derek quietly. Talia nodded, a small huff of amusement.

“I’m impressed. My brother’s learned to tell the truth in his stories,” she said dryly.

“Why?” asked Derek. “Why didn’t you want this back?”

“Because it wasn’t mine,” said Talia. “I was welcomed in to it, I am a part of it, but it’s Melissa’s. And I believe she can handle it. It’s one thing to lead a group, Derek. Something else to be _a part of it_ , guide it, lend strength instead of use it. I’m not sure I can explain.”

The frown showed confusion and Talia reached up to ease the lines away with her thumb as she framed her son’s face with her hands. “An alpha is _nothing_ without a _pack_. I’m good where I am,” she said. “It’s not something you have to worry about.”

He seemed to think it over, holding her gaze until she pulled her hands back to her own jacket pockets. The intimidated puppy withdrew and her son squared his shoulders, slowly back to the usual unreadable expression. Then his lips twitched, the tell that he was hiding a grin and Talia raised her eyebrow at him preemptively.

“You honestly expect us to go be civilized over dinner?” he asked.

“For the last time, _yes_ ,” said Talia.

“I’m perfectly civilized as a wolf,” said Derek. Talia was having none of that and she made sure he knew it. Derek relented and turned away to go back down the hall. He offered his arm to his mother again.

“Fine,” said Derek. It caught Cora’s attention and she looked up at them at their approach. Derek raised a hand to knock on the Argents’ door even and Talia caught herself grinning despite his false belligerence. “So we go pretend to be civilized human beings over dinner.”

“Easy enough,” agreed Cora. “Just try not to drool on anything.”

Talia flicked her daughter’s ear for it but was glad she stood behind her children so neither saw her smile.

 

***


	37. Chapter 37

The alarm went off early. Ridiculously freaking early. Melissa was used to her night shift hours again, and she was on the second day of what passed for her weekend, and there was absolutely no reason for her alarm to be going off at 8am when she didn't leave for work lately until 7pm. And it was her weekend. _Really, it's okay, just stop making that damn noise..._

"Mel."

"No. No _Mel_ -ing me. Just kill it and go back to sleep." Melissa's reply was accompanied by the theft of Casey's pillow so she could drag it over her ears. Casey picked it up so she could hear him whisper.

"Hon, that's your _phone_ ," he told her. Melissa was awake enough suddenly to dive for the nightstand. She collapsed back against the mattress when she saw that the ringtone was only an alarm she had set to remind herself she had to wake up at an ungodly early hour for an actual reason. Talia had scheduled the old house to be torn down that morning, and she wanted to be there to be sure it was finally done. But her friend wanted moral support present too, for her and her kids, and that made it a pack deal by default in Melissa’s opinion. There was no way Mel was sleeping through it. Or even going to risk being late. _But sleep..._ she missed it already.

"Urgh."

"You can take a nap later?" Casey said, trying for optimism. "I don't think any of them will be able to sit out there _all_ day."

Melissa cracked an eyelid open enough to glare at him. "Werewolves don't get cold, remember? They are somehow virtually _impervious_ to rain. And a hundred other reasons they can - oh m'god, why am I so tired."

"Because you were awake with Scott half the night helping him sort things out," said Casey. "And even if you weren't, this is still early for you. Any other questions I can answer for you before your brain kicks in gear?"

Mel lifted a hand to pat at Casey's jaw, stroked sleepily at his cheek. "Why didn't you bring me coffee in bed if you're so wide awake?"

"Because. This is more fun."

Mel curled into his shoulder and wound her hand into his t-shirt to stay close. She could nap because _he_ was awake and _he_ would watch the clock and...

"Mel? What time did you tell Talia we'd be there?" Casey asked, quieter in case she was already dozing off. "We've got the boys again and we'll have to get them up."

Mel frowned. "I didn't get that memo."

"Me neither, but if it wasn't Derek out on the roof last night I'm pretty sure there would have been panic-landslides involved and I’d _bet_ the house wouldn’t still be standing," said Casey.

"What happened to the ground rules?"

Casey raised an eyebrow, obviously convinced she wasn't awake yet. "Uh. _Stiles_ , uh, happened to them."

"Koz. Come _on_."

"What? He stopped listening when he was ten. The ground rules were just something I figured I'd try. That doesn't mean I actually thought they'd _work_. And now there’s magic involved and I’m just _not equipped_..."

Mel lightly beat her forehead against his shoulder. "I don't know how either of you survived this long."

"Easy. He stopped listening so I started pretending to be _hopeless_ and he kept himself in line thinking he was keeping _me_ in line," said Casey. Mel opened her eyes enough to smirk at him.

"Pretended, huh?"

"Just keep in mind that hellion learned everything he knows from me," returned the sheriff. “Well. Almost everything, anyway.” Mel shook her head and buried her face against his neck. Casey wrapped an arm around her.

"Wake up, Sleepy." He probably knew the hug was exactly the opposite of incentive to get out of bed. Mel huddled instead. Then her conscience started poking at her.

“I should call Scott,” she mumbled. “Make sure he’s awake.”

“I called earlier. He’s up, even had breakfast already,” Casey reported. “He said there’s ‘no mental trauma from dinner with Kyle’ and that he called Cora already to catch a ride up to the Hale house with her, Talia and Chris later.”

Mel blinked, slowly coming around as she listened to the quiet rumble of the man’s voice from tucked in against his chest. She got an elbow under herself to lever up and look at him. “You already called to check on Scott?”

Casey looked at her like he was trying to figure out what he had missed. “Well, yeah. Stiles is here. You’re here.” There was a hesitation, the unspoken observation that the two of them were ‘here’ and _safe_ , and Melissa caught it. Casey waved vaguely toward the window and the outside world. “Scott’s _there_. And I know you said things went fine last night, but I know the both of them are hard-headed idiots, too, and _fine_ can cover a lot of territory.”

The good sheriff Casey Stilinski had probably never been so thoroughly kissed in his life. After a minute (or so) she let him blink up at her with a little more distance and Mel got to see the dopey grin on his face.

“Okay... I think I need to ask what that was for so I can do it more often, whatever it was,” he said.

“You,” said Melissa. She grinned back at him. “Sometimes I really wonder if it’s ever actually occurred to you that Scott’s not your kid.”

“Oh.” Casey thought about it and shrugged. “Probably. But Stiles adopted him - no, seriously, Mel. He showed me the _paperwork_ they drafted, _years ago_ \- so it’s sort of... by association? Over the long-term...”

Melissa collapsed on his chest, fighting giggles as she hugged him. “I guess the long-term would explain it. I just never noticed before. I’m sorry for that.”

Casey started untangling a section of her frizzy, untamed bed-head. “I’m not. I kinda like how it turned out.”

And Mel realized that she did too. She and Casey had run at angles to each other for years because she was too intent on being the single mom, the nurse, the bread winner with the roof over her kid’s head. Not because that was all she wanted, but because that’s what was safe and she had to do. It was her and Scott against the world and _that_ was what she knew. A latchkey Stiles swept into that wasn’t much, there was no threat to it, but until Mel had been backed into a _whole group_ of latchkeys, she wouldn’t have slowed down enough to let Casey in. And he wouldn’t have let her in any sooner, either; Casey had his own issues to work through, and his wife’s death was a big one that he hadn’t taken by the horns until Stiles had accidentally forced him into it. Somehow, the timing had worked itself out without either one of them realizing it.

Now she had. And it scared her how fast she had gotten used to having something she wanted. The extra responsibility, the extra help, the accidental partner in taking on the daily wear and tear. Something clicked in her head and Mel propped herself up on Casey’s chest again to meet his eyes.

“We need a bigger house,” she said. The determined tone masked her fear and she stared at him. Casey’s brow furrowed but he nodded.

“Yeah, you’ve been saying that for awhile now,” he said, trying to keep up with the conversation. “You say you need a bigger house at least once a week. And then you say you’ll look in to it, and it goes about like every other homework assignment you give yourself. No time.”

Melissa poked his collar. “Not what I said.”

“Yes it...” The sheriff’s recall met up with his logic skills then and the deductive reasoning led to a look of comprehension. “Oh.”

They stared at each other. Melissa nodded encouragingly. “We need a bigger house.”

“Yeah,” Casey agreed. A grin hit his face. “ _We_ need a bigger house.”

 

***

 

Getting back to the daily grind was twice as difficult as usual. For starters, Chris’ shoulder hurt like hell and felt like it would never forgive him for the past few days of trying to ignore the injury. And second because, damn, some of the people he did business with were idiots. And third, half his contacts were on the east coast and it was far too early to be worrying about the whims of morons. It was terrifying that they were allowed anywhere near guns, let alone allowed to carry or shoot them. On one level he worried for the state of humanity, but on another entirely he had to wonder if he had always done business with morons and just never noticed before. Chris had a new understanding of his father and that was wearing off on anyone remotely like the man. But he had to put out some fires if he wanted to keep a roof over his kid’s head.

“Yeah, it was screwed up, Sam. I tried telling them my father was sick but they wouldn’t listen. Then I had to clean up the damn mess after I got out of the hospital,” Chris reported to his contact. “But it’s done.”

“Done? But... the guy was your dad,” said the hunter on the other end of the line.

“Yeah. He was. But he was attacked. And when the monster wins, you know they’re gone. That’s what we do. We take care of the problem, right?” Chris leaned over the desk and rubbed at his face without letting it hit his tone. Why couldn’t the man just make his deal and hang up already? He fielded a few more questions, a few more half-truths to hide the lies and start the rumor mills working in his favor again.

“Yeah, we’re working with the new alpha. The feds are making themselves general pains in the ass because of the last frenzy we had out here. Yeah, the thing with Mark Hutchinson... I’m trying to work this one into the same leash we had the Hales on when I was growing up. It’s the best I can do until things calm down,” said Chris. He had to work a little harder to sell that one, relied on some of the ingrained prejudice and made himself feel like shit. But Sam seemed to buy it.

The office door snuck open and Chris looked up to see Allison peek in. When he didn’t wave her out, she went to a bookshelf and started prowling for something. Chris carried on with his conversation, only absently tracking his daughter’s activity in the room. It was another five minutes before he closed a sale, and by the time he hung up Chris Argent wanted to hunt down a wolf and ask very, very politely for help with pain management. Instead he ground his jaw and popped some slower but equally helpful pain pills. Allison slipped around the desk, holding a few books like she had actually, maybe, possibly come into the office in search of early-morning research instead of just to snoop on him. Chris was fairly certain she was just spying though when she sat down and gave him that _look_. The girl didn’t get _mad_ usually, she got haughty, and Chris wasn’t sure if he should blame her mother or Lydia Martin for the look on Allison’s face just then. He swore he could smell Lydia’s perfume but that was just his imagination trying to explain the resemblance.

“Isn’t there something else we could do?” she asked. Chris blinked at her, going over the mental list of crises they had been involved in over the last few months alone and wondering what exactly they hadn’t _already_ done.

“What do you mean?” he finally had to ask.

“We’re selling guns to hunters,” said Allison. She waved around at the cupboards around the room all carefully designed to look like generic, boring, office cupboards. They both knew the arsenal that hid behind them. “All this stuff... to _hunters_...”

Chris shook his head. “Not all of them. I have some legit business sales and contracts.”

“Enough we could stop selling the guns to people who hunt people?”

“They don’t hunt people...” Chris stopped and stared at the table as he realized what he was about to say. “Well. They don’t hunt _our_ people.”

“That is so completely not okay with me,” said Allison. “I think we’re a little more advanced a society than that. We might not be taking aim at them, but we’re still providing the means to do it. I mean, we’re going to go up to the Hales in a little while...”

Chris fought a frustrated sigh and leaned forward on the table to put his head in his hands. “Not all hunters are your grandfather, Allison. Not all of them are that desperate. Just because I sell a gun doesn’t mean it’s used for anything other than game, or for self-defense.”

That was still not an answer that Allison approved of and her pinched expression made that all too obvious. “But Talia...”

“So? Not all wolves are like Talia,” said Chris. He looked up at her, tried not to feel as ancient as he did. “It’s not black and white, Al. If I’ve learned anything lately, it’s _do not_ put people in boxes. They don’t always fit them. That goes double for anything with claws, fangs, or sparks. Never, never think you know them just because you know Scott or Talia.”

The girl bit her lip and seemed rather reluctant to nod her head as she worked it out for herself. “Take them one at a time.”

“Yes. Look at the context, the clues in front of you, not just the claws and fangs.”

It seemed to distress her somewhat instead of set her at ease. “Gerard was right. I still need training.”

“More than training, Allison. A lot of it is experience,” said Chris. He grinned at her, surprisingly amused. “And right now, _Talia’s_ got more hunting experience than you. But you’ll get it.”

 

***

 

Once Melissa was awake and moving on her own wits and willpower, Stilinski set himself to the task of coffee and breakfast. And waking Stiles and his... Derek. He made sufficient noise as he approached the bedroom door, opened it enough to make himself heard without accidentally witnessing anything he really, really didn’t want to see.

“Food’s in ten minutes. And if Derek tries to pretend he _didn’t_ come in through the window at 11:30 last night, there really _will_ be ash on that window by tonight,” said the sheriff in his best sheriff-voice. He paused long enough to hear Stiles mutter an apology and then carried on down the stairs. There would be bacon on the table for breakfast, Casey decided, smug. That was only partly vengeance at the rule-breaking; he had a very limited menu-plan when it came to kitchen skills, because Stiles was a little too obsessed with his heart health to have let his father do much cooking for the past six years or so. But bacon and omelettes, those Stilinski could pull off pretty reliably.

He had proudly set out four plates and was just getting food on to them by the time the first of the house-occupants stomped down the stairs. Stiles looked freshly showered and presentable enough for the day’s planned public activities, although awake was a different matter. It wasn’t until his son plopped onto a spare bit of counter space with one of the plates that Stilinski noticed what looked like a bruise - an actual obtained-by-hitting _bruise_ \- on the kid’s jaw.

“What the hell, Stiles?” blurted Casey, concerned. Stiles looked up at him, wide eyed over a fork full of food.

“ _What_ what the hell?” he asked.

“You were in a fight sometime between _lunch_ and _breakfast_ ,” returned his father. Comprehension kicked in and Stiles shook his head. Then he reconsidered and shrugged.

“Technically yes, but no. Sparring. Totally kicked my boyfriend’s ass, it was awesome.”

Stilinski stared, worry creeping into his temper. “You... _Werewolf_ ass?” he clarified. At Stiles’ confident, casually unconcerned nod, Casey shook his head. “I’m not getting used to this idea any time soon.”

Stiles missed his father’s concern about the bruise entirely. He smirked at him. “Told you I could be.”

It took Stilinski a minute to catch on to what his random son was talking about and he frowned. Then the lightbulb kicked on and he sighed. Casey was worried about his son fighting werewolves while Stiles thought the hang-up was that his son might have a boyfriend. That didn’t really surprise the sheriff; Stiles was a little too vocal in his seventeen-year-old-virgin desperation for anything short of barn-animals to surprise him. Which, again, made him think twice about the werewolf thing. Stilinski shook his head. “You still don't dress the part. You're lucky there’s not some kind of code enforcement.”

Stiles snorted and shoveled some of the eggs off his plate. Stilinski looked on, slightly pained; he had worked hard at that culinary masterpiece that his son was _inhaling_. Stiles carried on completely oblivious, not quite awake yet and under-caffeinated or not yet medicated, one of the two.

“ _Werewolf_ ass,” said Stiles bluntly. “I'm pissed off werewolves _don't_ have code enforcement ‘cause _their_ dress code is completely naked and...”

Raising his hands, Stilinski waved for his son’s attention. “Jeezus, Stiles! There’s things I really, really _don’t_ want to know about.”

Casey wasn’t sure if it was helpful or not but a very cautious Derek Hale entered the room then and Stiles’ expression turned almost angelic despite the devil-horns. He shrugged at his father, still smug.

"Shut up. You would be totally on board with it if the Alpha Mom stuck to _that_ code and you know it."

In for a penny, in for a pound and Stilinski was not about to be out-guttered by his son, seventeen and better practiced or not. Damn the internet anyway. "How do you know she doesn't?" he returned.

“I really don’t want to know what I walked into, do I?” asked Derek. Stilinski nodded, completely sincere and sympathetic at the same time. Stiles carried on.

"Because that is just wrong," the teenager said decisively. “Totally not Mel’s style.”

"My alpha, my business, buddy," said Casey. He handed a plate to Derek and then waved toward Stiles. “And you can feel free to make him shut up any time. _Please_ abuse the privilege.”

“It doesn’t work,” said Derek, shaking his head.

“Damn.” Casey leaned back against the counter. His own plate was ready but he would wait for Melissa to come down. The sheriff looked over at the two across the kitchen from him, Stiles still seated on the counter with his shoes resting on the edge of the junk-drawer he usually scuffed up and Derek leaned next to him, studying his plate. Casey was quite happy for the excuse to change the subject.

“Derek,” he said, catching the man’s attention. The werewolf looked up at him, brow raised at the tone. Stilinski nodded toward Stiles. “Next time he comes home from sparring with a bruise? I _will_ shoot you.”

“Ohmygod, Dad...”

“Yep, got it,” reported Derek, speaking over Stiles and showing no apparent problem with the agreement. Stilinski smiled.

“Good.” There could be a few perks to his son dating a werewolf after all; not every parent got away with threatening human-target practice so easily. Melissa could be heard on the stairs then and the three men in the kitchen stopped the slouching. Derek and Stilinski joined forces to glare Stiles off the counter and the teenager dropped down to his feet with an annoyed huff before he tucked back into cleaning his plate.

 

***


	38. Chapter 38

The day had gone rather dark and miserably for Derek. He had hoped for rain to put off the planned demolition of his house but there were only a few gray clouds. No rain. Just hard-packed, frozen mud and a bulldozer. He stood and watched with his family, with Stiles and the sheriff, the McCalls, and even the Argents, as the backhoe tore at the side of the walls, pulled down what was left of the roof. Filled in the basement with debris that would be scraped out and taken off to the dump over the course of the week if the weather allowed. Over the years, his room had been looted and spray painted and the window broken, but it was still Derek’s home, broken as it had been. It was the place he could go to hide after Laura died. It was the place where he could remind himself of what he had lost, what he had to make up for someday. A perfect reminder of why he was always alone. But it had been his home.

And maybe it was a good thing the house was gone, he realized, hours later. Maybe it would be okay to just live in the present for awhile again instead of reopening that memory every time he saw the shell of a house. He had lost everything in the fire, but he was still stuck _living_ with it. And somehow or another he found himself sitting on an old beat up couch with other packs around him, watching a movie because it was something they could all do together after Mel had announced the pack business taken care of.

Stiles hadn’t left his shoulder all day, his mood a mirror to Derek’s that only made him want to climb out of his funk faster so that Stiles would go back to smirking. And somehow, Derek had ended up on the couch sitting between Stiles and Scott. The other alpha didn’t show his usual reservation around him. Scott included him. It was like maybe Scott actually saw the human sitting there on the couch instead of the first werewolf he had ever had the misfortune to be introduced to. Maybe he saw someone who was important to Stiles, even if nobody else on the planet could understand why, including Derek. And maybe that was the point. Maybe, like Stiles insisted, Derek really was human. And maybe Stiles wasn’t the only one to see it. Maybe Derek was a part of something now that had nothing to do with the old house and the pain it had caused.

Too distracted to catch interest, Derek spent most of the movie watching anything but the screen. He studied his pack, and Scott’s, and Melissa’s when any of them wandered into the room. He realized he could actually see how much his guarded mom treasured the friendship she had built with Mel, and he saw his uncle’s posture and movements change around the woman to something protective. Peter would get cautious, his movements would get quicker, while his expression and heart rate and the set of his shoulders would relax. Isaac did something similar around Scott. They would all banter, they would all do their own thing, but they still knew where their alpha was and it showed.

Stiles didn’t share that behavior. He just subtly kept himself in Derek’s space bubble, or sometimes Scott’s when Scott was easier to get to. He paid attention when they talked or he ignored them at will, his smug expression in place either way. Stiles didn’t bow, because he didn’t worry. He knew he would always have Scott, and he showed that same confidence around Derek; there was no need to impress either of them when he would go through hell for them. He already had. Derek caught himself smirking, wondering if Stiles was secretly the alpha and the rest of them were just on his coattails. He almost had to excuse himself from the room after that thought and Stiles smirking at him for catching him staring didn’t help.

In contrast to those observations, Derek had Lydia. The Queen of the chair in the corner of the room, the only one of the three packs who could get Aiden to do anything. She could probably get Stiles to do anything, too, within a certain reasonable expectation. She was a banshee and a siren. But even Danny and Ethan tracked her more than they worried about Derek. The way Mel’s pack responded to her as alpha was reflected in the way Derek’s pack responded to _Lydia_. It confused him, and he puzzled over it, and he didn’t understand why it didn’t bother him more than it did.

“You okay, man?” Stiles’ question drew Derek from his thoughts and he stared at him, brow furrowed.

“I’m fine,” he replied. Scott huffed, amused by the lie, but he left it alone. Stiles stared at Derek for another moment before Derek pointed his attention back to the TV. When Stiles was distracted again, Scott smirked over at Derek.

“I heard that, you know,” he said. He mouthed the word _Lie_ and raised an eyebrow at Derek, but accepted it when Derek ignored him in favor of staring at the movie. Stiles got tired of being a civilized human being not long later and sprawled across his corner of the couch, legs over the armrest and his head on Derek as a pillow. Derek relaxed a little, set his hand on Stiles’ chest just at the collar of his shirt, just where he could feel the heartbeat and breath and _life_ of someone he trusted. There was something _off_ in the room, the balance was off kilter and there was something hard on the air, a weird scent he didn’t know what to do with. Stiles calmed him down and kept him from worrying about it quite so much. He would figure it out eventually.

 

***

 

The day hadn’t gone as bad as Stilinski had expected. He had real cause to worry and the work schedule had been cleared just to be sure he and Melissa had time to put out any fires that might crop up in the pack from the one thing on the agenda. If anything, though, watching the old Hale house meet a bulldozer seemed to have helped. One more piece of old business marked off the family’s ledger.

Talia was in a better mood for it, prodding everyone for ideas for the new house, what it should look like, when should they start on it, paint colors and the whole nine yards. She was determined to look forward, with no more hulking burned out shadow mocking her failures from the woods. Derek didn’t rise to her optimism very well, and of the four remaining Hales present, he had been the most uncomfortable one out there that morning. He didn’t say much all day, and neither did Stiles. Cora was still Cora, her usual Wednesday Addams quiet, but Talia got a few more smiles out of her. By the time Stilinski headed in to work to get a few things off his desk before Kyle went snooping, Cora and Allison were actually talking to each other like fellow human beings and the sarcasm had been intentionally and politely toned down to a level Allison was more comfortable with. Hell, everyone was more comfortable with it, really.

The afternoon hours passed without anything happening, which Stilinski was now proud to consider an accomplishment on behalf of the packs. There had been an impromptu pack meeting, just to be sure everyone knew the Hale house was gone, and as an excuse to crowd Melissa’s house with teenagers on the woman’s day off. Derek’s pack took off before dinner though, their own plans for the evening already made, and Stilinski had done little more than cross their path on his way in the door after work. Chris and Allison showed up not long after that and they all crowded into the kitchen.

An otherwise peaceful dinner was brought to an unsightly demise the first time Mel slipped up and called him Koz. And then Scott joined in. Isaac looked like he wanted to, just because Stiles was in a mood to let it annoy him, but a glare from the Annoyed-in-question backed the kid off from joining in. Scott dropped his dinner plate in the sink to head upstairs.

He messed up Stiles’ hair with both hands as he passed and Stiles swept the touch away, indignant. “Dude! Stop wearing your girlfriend’s perfume if you’re gonna do that. I don’t want it on me.”

Derek scoffed over at them, shaking his head. “Dude,” he mocked lightly. “His girlfriend doesn’t wear perfume. She’s allergic.”

Stiles scowled and scrunched his nose. “Okay, gross. Get it off- I don’t wanna know. Ugh.” He grabbed Derek’s shirt sleeve and rubbed it on his head, making the messed-up hair somehow more messed up. Stilinski thought seriously about handing Scott some scissors while he was messing with his kid’s head. Scott just grinned and pawed at Stiles’ face instead of his hair.

“I’m going to go catch up on some homework,” he announced just as Stiles looked about ready to physically tackle him away from the table. Scott clapped a hand to Derek’s shoulder as he passed by, smirking like the devil. "If you guys get tired of hanging with the 'rents come on up," he told the other alpha then shifted his gaze to the sheriff. “Don’t let Stiles forget we’ve got that essay due. See you, _Koz_.”

" _Stilinski_ ," Stiles reminded them loudly as Scott and Isaac raced up the stairs.

Talia laughed quietly. " _Sheriff_ goes in front of that."

"Yep. Not Koz."

Stilinski pulled a face at his son, shaking his head. "What are you, twelve tonight?"

"No, I am very committed to my father's _promises_ ," said Stiles. He put as much of a guilt trip into it as he could. Stilinski rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe they were back to this. But at the same time, _damn_ , he was glad they were back to this. Stiles was back to worrying about the _stupid things_ that once upon a time had been potential death-sentences to be heaped on his father.

The werewolf seated next to Stiles shook his head, amused. "I catch you lying as often as you tell the truth," said Derek.

Stiles nodded, pointed a fork full of salad at his father. "Thats why I said _his_ promises. I'm protecting _his_ reputation. His good name."

"Which is, apparently, Koz," said Chris helpfully.

"No. Stilinski."

Melissa stood at the kitchen counter, alternating between cleaning up after cooking and eating her dinner. She grinned over her shoulder at Stiles. "There's nothing weird about Koz... Unlike yours."

Stiles flashed a momentarily horrified glare up at Mel. “No. _No_ talking.”

Derek pounced on the reminder. "Yeah, what's your real name?"

"It's Stiles,” said Stiles. He looked perfectly offended. “The hell would you doubt?"

"Lie," said Derek.

"Stiles," said Stiles.

"Lying Stiles," offered up Peter from his lean against the counter with a mug of Melissa’s now famous-to-Peter tea.

Stiles nodded his agreement with the label. "Yeppers."

“You should tell me your name,” said Derek. He was laying it on thick and Stiles smirked over at him, no stupid kid after all.

“You should tell me your age,” he returned in the same tone.

Stilinski reached for the salad bowl in the middle of the table. “Yeah, actually, I’d be interested in that one too. Since the only ID I’ve ever gotten from you turned out to be fake.”

Derek shook his head and turned his attention to his dinner. “Stiles it is then.”

The non-response predictably annoyed him and Stiles bared his teeth at him, scrunched his nose in his usual mock of the sourwolf. Derek tossed the look back at him, as was their custom Stilinski had noticed lately. It was still weird to see his son’s brown eyes fade blue at the edges, but Stilinski was getting used to it. Then Stiles’ teasing stopped and he frowned, brow furrowed and confused and the second color stuck around. The blue usually flashed and faded, but sticking around was not normal. The sheriff’s idle amusement turned in to openly paying attention over Derek’s shoulder, waiting for an explanation. Stiles poked at Derek’s temple.

“Red just went blue,” he reported. Derek caught his hand away from his face and pinned it to the table. Talia looked across the table at them. Derek shook his head at the both of them.

“Huh. Not my problem,” said Derek.

"What do you mean?" Stiles asked, confused. " _I_ do the blue thing. _You_ do red. That's how it works."

Obviously aware of his mother and her pack’s presence in the kitchen, Derek nonetheless shook his head. "It didn’t before. Not the end of the world. Is it?”

“No, s’just... weird?” Stiles’ brow still showed he was worried. Derek shrugged.

“Not the weirdest thing that’s happened this week,” he replied. Mel and Talia exchanged a glance, their concerned expressions almost perfect mirrors of each other. Derek shrugged it off and dared to grin; for once it apparently wasn’t his problem to worry about it because he was the only one who didn’t seem to mind the change. From upstairs there was a loud thump on the floor from the general vicinity of Scott’s room. Then he bellowed down the stairs as he started pouncing toward the kitchen.

“What the _hell_ , Derek!”

Mel looked from Talia to Derek’s smirk, her brows arched in surprise. “Sounds like it’s his problem, hmm?”

Stiles looked confused, eyes narrowed as he looked around. “Wait...” he blurted as Scott slid into the room. “Does this mean Lydia kept the twins?”

 

***


	39. Chapter 39

When the chaos of Stiles’ accidental discovery died back down - sometime after Scott had experimentally alpha-ordered Derek into the den to watch a movie, because “ _screw homework!_ ”... this was apparently a mind-blowing development for everyone - just Mel’s pack was left in control of the kitchen. She had finally settled down at the table about the time Peter decided to stop lingering and that it was time for him to get going. The way he chose to phrase his announcement left the rest of the pack staring openly.

“You? Have a what?" asked Chris. He and Peter would probably never get along any better than he and Derek, but at least they pretended well. Melissa grinned at the shared disbelief before looking up at where Peter stood between her shoulder and Talia’s.

"That's classified," said Peter, perfectly sarcastic. He apparently didn’t feel like repeating himself. Mel shook her head slightly, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

"How is a date _classified_?"

Peter blinked at Melissa like the poor woman had lost her senses. "As an outing. With an individual. Of either gender of preference. Usually between consenting adults..."

The definition of a date was not the question and only made the smirk on Peter’s usually smirking face all the more suspicious. Melissa’s jaw hung slack for a moment before she turned to look at Talia. "...okay. Now I'm worried."

"The other adult is consenting, _right_?" asked Stilinski. Peter rolled his eyes practically into the next county at the sheriff’s not-actually-stupid question.

"Of course,” he said, prompt and dismissive. There was an obvious pause before the unsaid “but...” followed. “ _Aware_ of the classification is another story."

Talia leaned on the table with her head in her hands. "Oh for godsake. Peter."

"Ignorance is bliss, dear sister mine." For all that Peter was scary, he was sure charming about it sometimes. He patted the two women on the shoulder, kissed each cheek, and then stood to leave. He waved at the table of staring faces as he swung into his jacket in the foyer and then stood there. Patiently. Going nowhere. The sheriff’s face scrunched up, a credible imitation of his son that only proved the expressions were genetic, and he shrugged his shoulder and held out a hand to ask what the hell Peter was doing. Then there was a knock on the door, polite and firm, and silenced when Peter let the door swing open with his usual amount of theater. He stayed back as a familiar voice from the porch asked, “Mexican tonight, right?”

Melissa choked on her tea. She knew her ex, she knew there was no way... but then again, why the Hell would Kyle McCall voluntarily go anywhere with Peter Hale? Aside from the fact that Melissa had asked Peter very nicely to stalk her ex-husband by whatever means necessary only a month earlier and one really never could be certain they would get what they paid for with Peter. The very, very obvious silence from the kitchen even caught Kyle’s attention and he stared in at them from the doorway. The confusion on his face showed his absolute non-concern for the picture Peter had painted and it took everything Melissa had not to laugh in that moment.

"I was thinking Thai," Peter said to Kyle. The Fed on Mel’s doorstep shrugged and disappeared from view.

"I don't care. Food."

The door closed after Peter, the two men already discussing the Bulls game. Nobody at the table in the kitchen said a word until they heard the first car door slam. And then Melissa nearly fell out of her chair laughing.

“What the hell just happened?” asked Chris loudly. Stilinski was too busy silently laughing to answer and Talia still had her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Melissa clung to the table, a huge smile on her face.

“Think about it,” she said to Chris, after repeated efforts at finding her voice. “I told Peter to babysit my ex-husband. I’m beginning to think it’s _code_.”

“I think we’re all grateful you’re immune,” said Chris. He kept the act up for another moment before the grin finally cracked, which only set Melissa and Casey off again just as they had finally gotten themselves back together.

 

***

 

"Okay. That can't be good." The observation was quiet but a universal enough sentiment that even Allison heard it. Stiles crawled carefully up onto the couch so he could hop over the back of it without disturbing Scott or Cora's recline against the pillows leaning on it. He went out of his way not to risk kicking Derek as he went over, but just for fun he smacked him on the back of the head with a careful palm. Derek made a half-hearted grab after him but Stiles scooted away before claws caught plaid. The wolf stayed on the couch with the movie while the resident non-hunter human crept off to find trouble.

He made it as far as the front door, his face schooled to its most suspicious, when there was a knock on the door. It quieted the laughter from the kitchen and sobriety soon reigned. Stiles took that as his cue to play host and he opened the McCall's front door like he owned the place. Because he had. Ever since he was a kid. And he wasn't afraid of no _pack rules_ about _territory_.

"Hey!" Stiles was surprised to find Deaton standing on the other side of the door. It was still weird to see him outside the vets office but Stiles was glad to be over the Druid-thing. He let the man in the house to a chorus of "Alan!" from the kitchen.

It did make Stiles a little nervous, watching the Druid be social and chatty with the parents. And then Scott joined in. And then Derek. And Stiles lurked out of the way, monitoring to be sure nobody used any keywords like "Druid" or "magic" or "the Force" anywhere near his name. Until Stiles knew he wasn't going to kill anyone on accident, he was trying to keep the whole Druid-Stiles thing quiet. Maybe everybody _knew_ , since landslides tended to be noticed, but that didn't mean it was something he wanted to flaunt. Yet. When he could make knives fly and snap his fingers to light candles, _then_ he planned to flaunt the hell out of it.

Stiles was paranoid for nothing, quite happily. The conversation centered around the no-longer-standing house out at the preserve, and Chris' injured shoulder, and how Banshees were somehow immune to the bite but apparently no one (except Stiles) was immune to _pack_ now that Derek and Lydia had somehow traded off for the twins. General pack-stuff.  Stiles left them to it, not feeling exactly anti-social, just not overly chatty. Either he was tired or Derek was wearing off on him and he needed to bug Scott more.

Quite over his fake-pneumonia, Stiles slipped out onto the porch for awhile. His brain was busy and the house was noisy. So he took over the swing, hid in the shadows at the end of the porch and watched his breath fog up the night air.

"You have this aversion to jackets." The tease wasn't entirely unexpected and Stiles looked up as Derek stepped outside.

"I prefer space heaters," returned Stiles. And that was how he got one, on the swing, in the quiet, in the dark, after a really weird day. He wasn't sure why seeing the Hale house as a mess of broken boards and bricks bugged him, - he knew it was going to be bigger and better once Talia was done with it,- but the change was going to take some adjusting to.

Stiles was almost asleep, shoulder to shoulder and soaking up the werewolf-warmth in his space, when the door opened. Derek and Stiles were quiet as the rest of the group said their goodbyes just inside. Nobody noticed them in the shadows. So they stayed there as Deaton was followed out of the house by Melissa and Talia. They saw him back to his car, which struck Stiles as more out of the norm than Deaton's visit in the first place. He glanced at Derek, saw the werewolf shamelessly eavesdropping with his wonderful hearing, and settled in to do the same. They were hard to hear but what Stiles couldn't pick up, he got Derek to repeat for him.

"Would you consider following my children and I to the McCall pack?" Stiles thought he heard Talia ask.

"It's no secret that I don't know what I'm doing," said Mel, the light laugh tempered by the truth of it. "Talia believes you could help me fill in the blanks that she and the others can't."

"My door is always open to the Hales and the McCalls," said Deaton. "I've been waiting on you and Scott for awhile now, wondered what was going to come of that spark. So yes, I will gladly catch the coattails of this... merger with the Hales."

Melissa caught the man's offered hand gratefully and, watching from the porch, Stiles jumped slightly. Derek frowned at him.

"Did you see that?" asked Stiles under his breath.

"What?" Derek hissed back.

"They just... They sparked." There was no other way to describe it. Just an electric bolt in the second before Melissa and Deaton's hands touched, a small white light that flashed and was gone.

"I didn't see anything," said Derek. Stiles watched as the non-huggy Talia and Deaton shared a parting hug. No sparks, just a hug. Deaton moved away then to get in his car. He paused in the door and looked back at the McCalls' porch.

"I'll see you at my office tomorrow, Stiles," the man said. Stiles jerked as though to try hiding behind the porch rail knowing they had been caught but he stalled out and turned it into a wave instead. Deaton called out a parting shot at Derek, too, then he was in his car and gone. The two on the porch tried very hard not to look guilty; it wasn't their fault nobody had noticed them before dealing with pack emissary business. They were left to their corner when Talia and Mel returned to the kitchen.

Stiles' mind went back to being busy with druid-stuff in the quiet. Druid-stuff like how they fit in with the packs, because a _sparking handshake_ between an alpha and an emissary was hardly an indicator of an _honorary title_.

After a while Derek slumped at his shoulder, not asleep, just relaxed and wanting to be close. Things were still and comfortable.

"Huh. You and that tattoo." The thought startled Stiles and he looked over at Derek. "Omega, alpha, now beta."

"It's a cycle," said Derek. He nodded, his chin on Stiles' shoulder. "Not a lifetime job. Changed after the fire, changed after Laura died..."

"Changed again when you had to save Cora," added Stiles. Derek nodded.

"And then some jerk brought me back online to save his scrawny ass from hunters."

"First, my ass is a nice ass and it is not scrawny," replied Stiles, the seventeen year old virgin with his priorities in line. "Second, pretty sure you would have had problems saving my scrawny ass from your psycho ex girlfriend if you had been an omega. I didn't do so great with the hitchhiker without pack."

"Werewolf," replied Derek.

Stiles raised an eyebrow and pointed a hand toward the house. "Human alpha. And a banshee one now, too. Your wolfy arrogance is totally invalid."

"I'm not arrogant."

"I'm not scrawny."

"Lie," reported Derek, smug at the teasing.

"Lie," replied Stiles. The two smirked at each other, Stiles kicking the swing into a half-hearted movement. Derek caught a leg under his to make him be still and the swing settled again. Stiles stared at where their ankles crossed, his focus slipping as they went quiet again.

“You know,” Stiles observed, offhanded and only accidentally thoughtful. He poked Derek’s knee just to get his attention from the zone-out. “You’ve been stuck babysitting forever. You should totally go home tonight and actually sleep in _your_ bed. Like a grown-up.”

Derek nodded in absent agreement. “Yeah, I should,” he replied. He shrugged and thought about it. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Stiles grinned at him as Derek stood, turned to pull him off the swing if he had to. “Movie tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah. In a minute. Not like I haven’t seen it a hundred times,” said Stiles. The movie was completely off his radar and his mood mellowed out again at the mention of it. Derek accepted the wave-off but leaned in, his hands on the swing on either side of Stiles to push the chair back and up. Stiles’ shoes braced on the ground but he let him push until the swing was suspended higher, apparently where he wanted it. The content sourwolf angled for a kiss and then turned for the house when Stiles was smiling again. He didn’t see Stiles lurch from the chair to attack from the rear.

 

***


	40. Chapter 40

By the time Scott went looking for his errant new pack-mates, Derek opened the front door and stepped inside right in front of him. Stiles was wrapped around him, his chin on the wolf’s shoulder as he casually matched his steps and tried to step on his heels. Scott smirked at them and shook his head. He was about to ask if they could start the movie again when Stiles’ attention lit on the kitchen like an angry ferret.

“Almost forgot the wine!” announced Mel, as though she had forgotten that detail until she spoke. Derek trapped Stiles’ hands where they were at his front, just to be sure Stiles’ health-freak-side didn’t interrupt the adults’ fun. There was a scuffle in the foyer, Stiles against Derek and Scott both because Scott wasn’t passing on the opportunity to roughhouse indoors. Two werewolves versus a barely-fledgling druid, and Stiles came out ahead when he figured out how to _zap_ Scott in the ribs. He still ended up with his over-shirt tugged over his head and the gloves would have been off if it was hockey.

Scott scrunched his nose at Stiles, but both of them were ridiculously fascinated by the brief scorch-damage he managed to cause. Then Scott healed and he was left with a shirt with a hole singed in it and he wasted no time informing Stiles that his mom was gonna kill him for it. Scott happened to like taking the opportunity to be mentally twelve when he was presented it gift-wrapped. Their collective mental age group did not improve as they lurked in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Seeing as how Chris provided this truly excellent bottle of wine,” said Melissa, unwittingly catching the boys’ attention back into the kitchen. Scott was closest and peeked around the edge of the wall, and then was piled-on by Stiles and had to crouch to avoid getting squished. “He gets to start the toast.”

Scott rolled his eyes, all interest lost in listening to speeches and toasts, but Stiles was digging his elbows into his back to keep him where he was. Apparently Scott made a useful leaning post and Stiles would _regret_ the discovery at the worst possible moment some day soon. So Scott caught his friend around the knee as a check to the elbows and they watched the kitchen table at a checkmate. It was kind of interesting to see Chris Argent half-smile over at Talia Hale, one of his genuine-half-smiles, not the fake kind that Scott was used to seeing aimed at him or Stiles.

The parents lifted their various-shaped glasses of whatever passed for good wine. It couldn’t be that good if the sheriff was drinking it out of a coffee mug. But then, his mom didn’t have much in the way of serving-stuff, either, Scott reasoned. It was actually Chris who spoke up first. It would never get old watching grown adults follow his mom’s orders better than Scott ever did, he decided.

“Here’s to broken curses and buried pasts,” said Chris. Talia added in a quiet ‘hear-hear’ as the first glass chinked.

“To knowing where you belong,” she said. Scott’s mom shot her friend a wide smile and bumped her shoulder and Scott realized it had been years since he had seen her so happy. He smiled too and then elbowed Stiles in the gut just to pester his just-short-of-legal brother.

Then the sheriff joined in on the toasts. “And on that note, here’s to keeping up with our kids!”

Talia and Melissa both let out a laugh. “Hell, to our kids a being able to keep up with us,” said Melissa, dead serious despite her laughter. With the sappy statements having made their rounds, the adults said their huzzahs and tipped back their assortment of impromptu wine glasses. Scott looked up at Stiles, past his shoulder to Derek and then back as Stiles looked down at him.

“That was totally a challenge,” Scott said, just loud enough for Stiles to catch over the parents’ noise. The other teen nodded, his smile particularly dangerous.

“Busted...” intoned Derek quietly. Scott looked up to see Talia looking over at them, amused. Scott tugged on Stiles’ leg to unbalance him, sent him crashing in to Derek as he stood up. Melissa leaned back in her chair to see the troublemakers in her kitchen and gave a dismissive wave.

“Private party, must be over twenty-one to enter,” she taunted. Stiles brightened and shoved Derek into the room.

“We’re with him,” Scott said smoothly as he dodged in with them. Derek snorted, the sentiment shared by the sheriff and his mother both based on the similar sounds from them. Stiles arched an eyebrow at him and pulled a fantastic bitch-face that made Scott laugh.

Stiles added in quickly, “Whether he likes it or not.”

Talia looked from Stiles to her son, to the younger wolf and back again. "He likes it, Pup, and so do I." Her brown eyes shifted to her alpha then, the two sharing a smile. “I think we need another round. We’ve got one more pack to toast.”

 

*** The End ***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Annnnnd that's a wrap, folks! 
> 
> (At least on this series... lil' stand-alones will happen. I promise. Stop panicking...)


End file.
